The City That Never Was
by Quatermass
Summary: While visiting Bernice Summerfield at an archaeological dig, the Doctor learns of some disturbing artifacts that point to an impossible city, plundering from other times and universes. The Doctor and Benny resolve to investigate, and soon find themselves drawn into Booker DeWitt's quest to find Elizabeth in the city of Columbia... (Rated M for violence, language, and themes)
1. Foreword

**FOREWORD**

Most of my fanfics seem to be Harry Potter ones, usually crossovers. For being a major _Doctor Who_ fan, I only have one (as of writing this foreword, anyway), rather average _Doctor Who_ fanfic on my account, a crossover with _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_ called _Time and Entropy_. Hopefully, that will change, and this fanfic will hopefully be the first of some _Doctor Who_ fanfics.

I've noticed a tendency with many fanfics and crossovers with _Doctor Who_ a tendency to use New Series Doctors. While I'm sure that many other writers may be most familiar with the New Series, I am familiar with the series as a whole, and thus would prefer to use Classic Series Doctors where I can. Not because I hate the New Series, but rather, because I think New Series Doctors have been over-exposed of late in fanfic.

After some careful consideration, I decided to use my favourite Doctor, the Seventh, as played by Sylvester McCoy. An undervalued Doctor in my opinion, some of his stories were beginning to become sophisticated and mature. While _Doctor Who_ has tackled racism and xenophobia as far back as the first Dalek story, and 70s story _The Mutants_ being a strong attack on colonialism and apartheid, McCoy's last two seasons as the Doctor saw perhaps more social comment than ever. _Remembrance of the Daleks_ examined racism and fascist groups in 60s London, _The Happiness Patrol_ satirised Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister, _Ghost Light_ looked at evolution and the trappings of Victorian society, _The Curse of Fenric_ discussed the horrors of war and children hating their own parents, and _Survival_ looked at both youth and how battle and fighting turns men into beasts.

This is why the Seventh Doctor, I thought, was more than capable of joining Booker DeWitt on his sojourn through Columbia. And this is the Seventh Doctor some years after the TV series. I considered having the Seventh Doctor do it solo, but I decided to bring in Bernice Summerfield, a character from both the books and the audios, to accompany him.

And now for the usual disclaimers. Firstly, there will be annotations galore here. You don't like them? Tough.

Secondly, obviously, I don't condone the practises of Columbia, and neither do the developers of _BioShock Infinite_. That being said, there will be offensive racist language, spoken by racist idiots who live on Columbia. You have been warned.

Thirdly, there will be spoilers, especially early on, for a number of _Doctor Who_ stories, including the Big Finish audios. You have been warned, as I said above. In addition, I am doing this story in titled episodes like in the old Hartnell episodes. Just a gimmick.

Finally, the following is a fan-written work. _Doctor Who_ and _BioShock Infinite_ are the properties of their respective owners. Please, support the official release. Otherwise…well, you know what happens to Salamander at the end of _Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World_?


	2. Chapter 1: Disturbing Remains

**EPISODE ONE:**

 **THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS**

 _Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal._

 _-Albert Einstein_

 **CHAPTER 1:**

 **DISTURBING REMAINS**

It had been a long time since these two people had met each other. For one, it was a matter of years. For the other, it was some decades at the very least. One was a woman of some indeterminate age with short black hair and a sardonic demeanour. The other was a man, apparently middle-aged, with brown, messy hair, a melancholy face, and a Scottish accent.

"…And then she took me on-board her bus," the woman said, finishing up an anecdote. "By the way, Iris said to say hello, next time I saw you(1)."

The man flinched slightly. "I don't think you should encourage her, Benny. Iris Wildthyme and I are not always on the best of terms. She's more than a little…frivolous."

"Doctor, there are three words I'd like to say to that: playing the spoons(2)," Professor Bernice Summerfield retorted. The Doctor merely smiled.

The two were old friends, very old friends. Professor Bernice Summerfield had been working on an archaeological dig on the planet Heaven when she first met the time-traveller known only as the Doctor, a renegade Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. At the time, the Doctor had been travelling with a young woman from Earth in the 20th century who called herself Ace. However, the Doctor's ever-increasing manipulative nature (in that he often didn't tell his companions what he was doing, and had often put them in danger) had strained their friendship, and events on Heaven, where the Doctor sacrificed the life of Jan, a young pyrokinetic that Ace had fallen in love with, in order to save Heaven from the Hoothi, was the last straw. Ace fled from the Doctor in a fury, and Bernice eventually decided to join the Doctor, partly to see history and partly to keep him on the straight and narrow(3).

She had travelled to many places with the Doctor. They reunited with Ace, travelled with others, before Benny, through a series of various events, left the Doctor, and ended up working at St Oscar's University on Dellah, as well as working with Irving Braxiatel, the owner and curator of the prestigious Braxiatel Collection. She had been married, divorced, had a part-human son she called Peter (very long story there), and now tried to divide her time between family and work, with probably little success. The Doctor tended to travel on his own, these days. On rare occasion, he'd drop by to see Bernice.

Currently, they were in the mess at the dig site on the planet Dionysus 5. One of many planets in the cosmos with that particular nomenclature, frankly, and not as exciting to Benny, who liked a bit of a drink, as a planet named for the Greek god of wine and partying should be. Some strange debris had turned up there, debris that, on first glance, seemed horrendously anachronistic. So Braxiatel had sent her here. After all, nobody could figure out the reason for anachronism quite like a former time traveller, though Benny knew that Brax was himself a Time Lord, one who knew the Doctor quite well.

Their conversation drifted over to these remains, which had apparently been buried on this planet, under a layer of dust in an impact crater, for decades. "And the thing is, the signs point to these artifacts coming from the late 19th and early 20th century. Except…"

"Yes?"

"Well…some of the technology is extraordinarily advanced. Centuries ahead, albeit done with materials of the time. We found something called a 'kinetoscope'. Some sort of old movie viewer."

"Ah, yes. Edison made that, you know," the Doctor said. "Brilliant man. But blinkered. I preferred Tesla's imagination."

"Well, name-dropping aside, we also found a number of disturbing artifacts." She handed him a plush toy, partly decayed by time, of a strange, avian-like creature. He frowned. While it could have been a mere flight of fancy, the Doctor reckoned that the toy looked like it was based on something biomechanical, and that was certainly ahead of its time, unlike the kinetoscope. Then, Benny handed him a dataslate showing the image from a mural they had uncovered.

The Doctor scowled. He had seen things like this before, far too many times before, and not just from humanity, but still, it never failed to appall him. The picture depicted George Washington holding a bell (like the Liberty Bell) aloft, with an angel above him, and surrounding his feet were grotesque caricatures of racial stereotypes: Africans, Jews, Asians, Middle Easterns, Irish…

And at the feet of Washington was an epigram, of sorts: _It Is Our Holy Duty To Defend Against The Foreign Hordes(_ _4)_.

"Humans," he muttered disgustedly. Benny had heard him speak that word as if it was an expletive before.

"Of course, this was what got Brax interested," Benny said, taking the dataslate back, and pulling up another file. "We found an old audio disc. As in a phonograph record. And not in vinyl, either. It seems to be a shellac hybrid, which is really old. And yet, when we scanned the grooves and analysed it to bring out the sound without damaging the disc, we heard this…"

The Doctor frowned. At first, the _a capella_ song didn't seem remarkable…until he listened properly to the lyrics. "That's _God Only Knows_ , by the Beach Boys," he muttered. "Sung _a capella_ …on an ancient phonograph record."

"The record label, what survives of it, dates to 1912 CE," Benny said.

"Over half a century too early…" the Doctor said. "So either it is a hoax…or…" He got to his feet. "Benny, I need some equipment from the TARDIS. If my suspicions are correct, someone has been monkeying around with time. If we're lucky, then someone has been merely plundering the future for their present."

"And if we're not? Let me guess, death, danger, potentially universe-ending paradoxes, that sort of thing?"

"Indubitably," the Doctor said with a grim smile with only a little humour.

* * *

The Doctor was soon in the artifacts room, scanning the various artifacts with a device that seemed like one of the first Geiger counters, a rod connected by a cable to a box. Benny watched on, as the Doctor looked at the readings with an increasingly disturbed expression.

"Well?" Benny asked.

"Benny…I'm afraid I have some bad news."

"Don't tell me: they really do come from the past?"

"Not just the past," the Doctor murmured. "They come from another universe entirely." He patted the box. "This is a temporal-spatial displacement device, able to measure, roughly, how far in time an object or person has travelled. But it can also tell whether said object comes from another universe, which I wasn't expecting. Perhaps I should have."

"Are we talking a whole new universe, or a parallel timeline?" Bernice asked.

"The latter," the Doctor said. He then came across another artifact, a larger one, mangled beyond repair, but not identification. He paused, and examined it. "How is this possible?"

"Ah, you've found that one," Benny said. "That was the one that really puzzled us. It looks like an anti-gravity projector, and yet…"

"…It has the year '1893' stamped on it," the Doctor murmured, examining it. "It's a remarkable device. Beautiful even. But it shouldn't have existed in 1893, let alone 1912." He frowned at a barely legible mark. "Created by R Lutece…" He frowned. "Lutece…I know that name."

"And who is Lutece?"

The Doctor's face brightened in recollection. "In our universe, Rosalind Lutece was very nearly a definitive pioneer of quantum physics. Had she lived, I have no doubt she would have pre-empted Max Planck by over a decade."

"Had she lived?"

"Sadly, she died while at university. While she officially died of some undetermined disease, there were many rumours that she had been poisoned. She was rather radical in terms of her theories about quantum mechanics, and there were some mutterings that a jealous rival could not stand for being shown up by a woman. Her notebooks resurfaced centuries after her death, and were found to be centuries in advance of anything. Had she lived, creating a device like this would have been child's play," the Doctor explained. "Actually, I believe her notebooks are in the Braxiatel Collection(5)."

"Another female scientist, obscured by history," Benny muttered.

"True," the Doctor mused sadly. "It seems, however, in another reality, Lutece survived. And somehow had a hand in… _this_." He indicated the artifacts in the room.

* * *

The Doctor, Bernice, and the members of the expedition began to put what they knew together. They had found some documents suggesting that the artifacts were part of a vast, flying city called Columbia, created for the Chicago's World Fair in 1893. It was difficult trying to discern truth from propaganda, but the upshot was that the film in the Kinetoscope suggested that Columbia had intervened during the Boxer Rebellion, decimating Peking with its weaponry and soldiers. It then declared its independence from the United States, seceding from them.

The Doctor and Bernice felt that Columbia seemed to be a theocracy, with repeated references to a prophet by the name of Comstock, and a Lamb. There was also significant institutional racism. Every little scrap of information added up to a very disturbing picture indeed.

It culminated in a rare discussion between Braxiatel and the Doctor via video link-up. " _I still have some contacts in the Agency(_ _6)_ _, Doctor_ ," the aquiline, dark-haired head of the Braxiatel Collection purred. " _Whoever's responsible for this mess, it's certainly not a Time Lord, so we can rule out the Master or the Monk(_ _7)_ _. In fact, no time capsule methods have been detected, meaning we can rule out more than a few possibilities. However, we, as in both the Agency and myself, believe that rifts have been opened in time and space by either mechanical methods, or innate to an organism. Officially, the Agency believes it to be of little concern: the rifts themselves are not innately dangerous to_ _ **our**_ _universe. Unofficially, however, it is another matter entirely. There are a whole subset of parallel universes in constant flux, more so than they should be. In addition, if these rifts are being used to pilfer art and technology from the futures of those timelines, who is to say that they cannot use such rifts to plunder the secrets of Gallifrey?_ "

The Doctor sighed. "Are the Agency sending anyone to investigate, unofficially or not?"

" _You could say that. When I heard you were on Dionysus 5, I mentioned that. The response was, unofficially, somewhere along the lines of, 'Oh good, that saves us the trouble of contacting him ourselves'_ ," Braxiatel chuckled.

"Oh dear. So, that means…"

" _Yes, Doctor. You are to investigate the source of these rifts, this Columbia. I would appreciate it if Bernice went with you as well._ "

"Now hang on, Brax…" Bernice began to protest, before the Doctor cut her off.

"Very well, Braxiatel. It's been a while since I've travelled with anyone," he said. "But I am doing this to make sure Columbia is not a danger to others. I only work with the Agency if necessary. I do not hold to their agenda."

" _Very well, Doctor. Benny, I will make sure that Peter is looked after. Don't worry about that._ "

* * *

In a realm that was both everywhere, and nowhere, a pair of people sat, contemplating their plans. They were extraordinarily identical in many ways, and yet in others, they were different. A man and a woman, with mildly attractive but otherwise bland features, with red hair, and immaculate tan suits, although the woman had a long skirt with hers. They could have been twins, divided only by gender. It was both what they were, and yet, very different to what they were.

The woman frowned. "There is a disruptive influence coming."

"There always is, isn't there?" the man asked.

"Don't be facile. This is a variable well in excess of what we planned for."

"But what have we actually planned for? We're still not sure whether we will succeed."

"You're the one who tells me that one goes into an experiment knowing one can fail."

"And you're the one who tells me that one does not do an experiment knowing one has failed."

A faint sad smile touched the woman's features. "My fatalism must be infectious."

"Indeed it must be. Are you feeling ill?"

"I am feeling…something portentous."

"As opposed to pretentious?"

"Enough with the facetiousness," the woman said. "We will keep an eye on the new variable. If it helps Booker, then we will assist it."

"And if it doesn't, we remove the variable?"

"What else does one do with an experiment _but_ remove variables?" the woman said. However, inwardly, she was intrigued, perhaps even a little excited, though it would not do to show it. Perhaps this time, things would work out. Or perhaps things would end up worse than before. Time, it seemed, would tell…

 **CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **Well, I reckon that's the story off to a good start. I hope you guys like it.**

 **Now, a bit of an explanation for fans of** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **, or else** ** _Doctor Who_** **fans who are either more familiar with the new series rather than the classic series, or who may not be aware of pin-off characters. Professor Bernice Summerfield was a companion of the Seventh Doctor's who made her debut in the New Adventures novels back in the Nineties, when the classic series had pretty much ended. She's since had her own novel series, as well as her own audio dramas. Yes, the Doctor has travelled with a female archaeologist long before River Song.**

 **For those familiar with Bernice Summerfield, I apologise if I haven't made either her or Braxiatel sound quite right. I've only listened to a few of the audio stories (namely** ** _The Plague Herds of Excelis, Oh No It Isn't!_** **, and** ** _Silver Lining_** **), though I intend to rectify that. If you're wondering where this story sits, it's between, roughly,** ** _The Dance of the Dead_** **and** ** _The Mirror Effect_** **. If I've screwed up continuity, I'm sorry. Anyway, there's a dearth of fanfics with Benny, as far as I can tell, and virtually none with her travelling with the Seventh Doctor on this site. So I hope that this will be enjoyed. Hopefully, this will be updated far more frequently than my only other** ** _Doctor Who_** **fic,** ** _Time and Entropy_** **.**

 **A lot of the numbered annotations are for the** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **fans, or for** ** _Doctor Who_** **fans not familiar with the spin-offs or the classic series. It's also part of my vanity, showing off the references, but** ** _eh_** **.**

 **1\. Iris Wildthyme was created by Paul Magrs for his own fiction, but made her debut in the Whoniverse in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel** ** _The Scarlet Empress_** **. She has made a number of appearances in the Big Finish audios, played by Katy Manning, who had played Jo Grant in the classic series. A rather vociferous, frequently-inebriated hedonistic time traveller, Iris is mostly about having fun through time and space, though her heart (or hearts: whether she's actually a Time Lord is up in the air, and she likes it that way) is in the right place. The Doctor doesn't always get on with Iris: the two often argue (often about who plagiarised what adventure from the other), and there are times when she flirts with him, much to his discomfort. Benny met her during the events of** ** _The Plague Herds of Excelis_** **.**

 **2\. The Seventh Doctor often plays the spoons, and Sylvester McCoy, the actor who played the Seventh Doctor, was very skilled. Funnily enough, the Seventh Doctor (albeit due to various circumstances) ends up winning an intergalactic song contest through his spoon-playing in the audio story** ** _Bang-Bang-a-Boom!_** **Long story there.**

 **3\. Which is basically me spoiling the plot of a book over two decades old now: namely** ** _Love and War_** **, a** ** _Doctor Who_** **novel by Paul Cornell. It was recently adapted as an audio drama by Big Finish.**

 **4\. I used the promotional version of this image, rather than the version seen in the game in the Temple of the Order of the Raven. I thought that caption summed up Columbia's nature quite well.**

 **5\. I wanted to have a reason for either Lutece not existing in the Whoniverse, and so came up with this reason.**

 **6\. The Celestial Intelligence Agency, a secretive organisation within Time Lord society. Although only mentioned a few times in the TV series, the Agency has more of a role in the spinoff media, with them working to meddle in history in order to ensure Gallifrey's supremacy. It is they who sent the Doctor to Skaro in** ** _Genesis of the Daleks_** **. And we all know how** ** _that_** **turned out…**

 **7\. The Meddling Monk first appeared in 1965's** ** _The Time Meddler_** **, and was the first Time Lord (never named onscreen as a Time Lord) other than the Doctor or his granddaughter to appear. He appeared in one other story in the TV series,** ** _The Dalek's Master Plan_** **, and in a number of spinoff stories, including a number of audio adventures where he is played by former Goodie Graeme Garden. The Monk often meddles in time for his own personal benefit, though he claims to be improving history. The Master is, of course, well known to any Whovian as the Doctor's chief Time Lord enemy.**


	3. Chapter 2: The Private Detective

**CHAPTER 2:**

 **THE PRIVATE DETECTIVE**

Booker DeWitt was trying to focus on the mission at hand. Get the girl. Bring her to New York. Wipe away the debt. That's what the people employing him told him.

But they said nothing about him being rowed to a lighthouse off the coast of Maine by a pair of bickering boffins (he thought they were scientists, as they kept on going on about an experiment). Or about the lighthouse concealing a rocket. Or said rocket shooting him into the sky to a city hidden by clouds, floating in the sky like a ship on water. Or nearly being drowned by a half-blind priest who said only the baptised could gain passage to the city. Or about the city being filled with all sorts of weird wonders, from statues of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin being worshipped like God himself, to mechanical bloody horses! Mechanical horses, for God's sake! And these voxophone things, like some sort of diary, only recorded on a phonograph record.

As the float parade finished going by, and he could cross the bridge, Booker thought he had seen the strangest things he could see in this city. As it turned out, he was wrong.

A sound built up in the air, a sort of rhythmic wheezing and groaning noise. Like ancient machinery struggling to come to life, like a dying elephant, like whalesong, though Booker had no experience with the latter by any means. And then, a blue shape appeared out of thin air. Like a small hut, maybe a telephone booth of some kind(1). It had attracted the attention of many of the citizens of Columbia around him, but he was surprised that there wasn't more attention. Maybe this was more of a novelty to them than an actual wonder, something to be amazed by, but dismissed as some new fad. He noted the sign at the top: "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX". A light flashed on top, before ceasing as it became solid.

Some time passed before the doors opened, and a strange pair stepped out. One was a short man with brown hair, dressed in rumpled and slightly mismatched clothing, with a straw hat perched on his head, and with an umbrella clutched in his hand. The other was a dark-haired woman. He couldn't tell what her age was, but she was good-looking, though her gaze held more than a little cynicism. And she was also intelligent, given the way she gazed around.

Applause burst out from the impromptu audience, and the man said, in a somewhat theatrical Southern drawl, "Thank you, thank you! I am Doctor John Smith, and this is my assistant, Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield(2)." The man bowed, and the woman curtseyed.

Ah. A carny, or some travelling magician. Except there was something about them that set Booker's instincts, honed by years of working for the Pinkertons, never mind saving him during all those battles, screaming. These two were as much strangers to Columbia as he was, Booker was sure of it. And John Smith…okay, there were plenty of people with that name, but even so, it still stank of a phony name. Plus, the Summerfield woman looked ill at ease in her clothing.

Doctor Smith turned around and locked the door to the Police Public Call Box or whatever it was. "Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but a magician never reveals his secrets. I will be back to entertain you later. In the meantime, have fun."

As the two moved off, Booker followed at what he hoped was a discreet distance. They were drawn to where a barbershop quartet, standing on a flying barge, were singing a song. A sign proclaimed it to be called 'God Only Knows'. The others listening were enraptured, but Booker noticed that Smith and Summerfield were frowning.

"The Beach Boys," Smith murmured, barely audible as Booker came up, "over five decades too early." Booker noticed now that the man had a Scottish accent, rather than a Southern accent.

"Plagiarists," Summerfield muttered. Her accent was English, as far as he could tell.

His curiosity aroused, despite himself, Booker said, quietly, "What do you mean?" These two were speaking what could have been the words of a madman. But then again, the situation Booker was now in could be dismissed as the ravings of the insane as well. Flying cities, mechanical horses, blue telephone booths that appeared out of thin air…

The two turned to him. "I don't believe we have met, Mr…?" Smith asked, his voice once more speaking in the Southern drawl, albeit less theatrical than when he first arrived.

"Booker DeWitt," Booker said. "I saw your entrance. How did you do that?"

"Like I said earlier, Mr DeWitt," Smith murmured, "a magician doesn't reveal his tricks."

"And sane people don't speak of songs coming from the future," Booker pointed out.

"True." The man's eyes, Booker realised, were penetrating. As if they could see into the depths of his soul. Despite his earlier joviality, Booker could tell that the man was no fool. His eyes flickered down to Booker's right hand, and frowned. "I think it best if the three of us found somewhere quiet."

"Why?" Booker asked, now more on-guard than he had been before.

"Because, Mr DeWitt, if what we have read about this city is true, then that brand on your hand will get you into trouble," Smith said.

* * *

Bernice looked at the man whom they had managed to come across, this Booker DeWitt, as they stood a little out of the way of the crowd, with the Doctor carefully tying a handkerchief around Booker's hand. The man was in his thirties, with a handsome, if rather hard and pointed face, and light brown hair. The man was dressed fairly well, but the suit was somewhat worn.

"How did they know he was coming?" Bernice asked the Doctor, fidgeting. She hated this damned dress, or at least the corset that went with it. She could understand needing to blend in, but it wasn't very practical. Benny knew from experience that when getting involved in dangerous situations, one should be capable of running quickly. Especially if you were with the Doctor. At least she could wear practical boots beneath the skirt.

"Time travel," the Doctor muttered.

"Time travel?" Booker asked, understandably confused. "And what's all this about?"

The Doctor, wordlessly, handed Booker a crumpled pamphlet, which had a claw-like shadowy and sinister hand, with the letters 'A.D' glowing malevolently on it. The words 'BY HIS MARK YOU SHALL KNOW THE FALSE SHEPHERD' were writ bold and large.

"False Shepherd…" Booker muttered. "But…how?"

"Like I said, Mr DeWitt, time travel," the Doctor said.

"Time travel's impossible," Booker said, though he sounded uncertain.

"Professor Summerfield and I deal with the impossible," the Doctor said. "Whereas you, Mr DeWitt…you remind me of a former acquaintance of mine. Name of Duggan. Wanted to stop the theft of the Mona Lisa. I do hope you won't punch people all the time(3)."

"Was Duggan a police officer?" Bernice asked.

"Private detective," the Doctor said. Bernice noticed Booker reacting, although he quickly stifled the reaction. "Ah…an independent operator, like us."

"I see," Booker said. " _They_ sent you, to make sure I didn't foul up, did they?"

"That depends on who _they_ are, Mr DeWitt," the Doctor said. "However, we had no foreknowledge of you in particular being in the city. We are here to investigate dangerous happenings."

"So you're not here to retrieve the girl?" Booker asked, before wincing, apparently regretting giving his mission away.

Bernice and the Doctor looked at each other, before Bernice asked, "What girl?"

Booker frowned, before saying, "So you aren't…never mind. I've got a job to do. Stay out of my way."

"I wouldn't dream of being in your way," the Doctor said. "The best of luck to you."

As the man strode away, the Doctor frowned. "We'd better follow him, Benny. If he is the supposed False Shepherd, then he may get into trouble, sooner or later. Even with that brand obscured, someone might know the False Shepherd's face. Besides, if someone sent him here, it may be that they know what is going on."

* * *

Booker had passed through some gates, trying to take his mind off the strange couple. Their reactions had seemed genuinely puzzled, if intrigued, about Booker admitting his mission to find the girl. Smith had admitted that he had been sent here by someone, but odds were that his employer was different, or at least his mission was.

But why did Smith talk so casually about time travel? And how did he find that pamphlet of the False Shepherd? It looked incredibly old, compared to everything else.

Booker realised that the man could have easily have drawn attention to Booker by pointing out the False Shepherd, and potentially creating a diversion while he and the Summerfield woman went about their business. Instead, the man and his companion had drawn Booker aside, and helped him conceal it. It didn't necessarily follow that the two were trustworthy, but they had done him at least one favour. Assuming their information about the brand of the False Shepherd was good.

As he went through the gates, he saw, in the distance, a familiar-looking statue. Familiar, because it was on a postcard given to him amongst the box of items he had been given by that woman on the rowboat. Monument Island, where the gigantic statue of an angel awaited. And supposedly, that's where he would find the girl.

Suddenly, a boy came up to him, with a telegram. "Telegram, Mr DeWitt," he said, smiling broadly. "Telegram for you, sir."

He took it, puzzled, and more than a little apprehensive. After all, who knew he was here, barring his employers? The boy took off, and Booker was left to read the telegram.

 _DeWitt STOP_

 _Do not alert Comstock to your presence STOP_

 _Also, use personal discretion with Doctor and Summerfield STOP_

 _May be allies, or may be foes STOP_

 _Whatever you do, do not pick #77 STOP_

 _Lutece_

What the hell? Was this from his employers? At least he had a name now: Lutece. If this Lutece was his employer, then it meant that Smith and Summerfield weren't working with them after all. But that assumed that Lutece was his employer. Maybe Lutece was another independent factor. Yet another headache in a job that didn't need any.

"Personal discretion…" murmured the voice of Smith. It was all Booker could do not to jump. Booker was not a man who spooked easily, but the man had managed to sneak up on him. That, and the situation had him on edge. "Lutece…does the name Rosalind Lutece mean anything to you, Mr DeWitt?"

"No. Should it?"

"Well, she may be one of the chief minds behind this city," Smith said. "How else do you think it floats? Balloons? Rockets?"

"I have no idea," Booker said. "And that's not my concern. If the city stays afloat, I don't care how it stays afloat." He looked at Smith, and Summerfield, who was just walking up. "Tag along if you must, but stay out of my way. And if we need to part ways, then…"

"I understand," Smith said.

"Wonder what Lutece meant by 'do not pick number 77'?" Summerfield mused.

"Yes…" Smith said quietly. "I wonder…"

* * *

The TARDIS had drawn some attention from those present, with rumours spreading about its miraculous appearance, but even that attention waned. It wasn't that truly remarkable.

However, there were two people, red-headed twins, male and female, dressed in tan suits, who were interested in the TARDIS. They weren't noticed by anyone. Despite their fame within the city (or at least the fame of one of them), they could choose not to be seen and noticed. So they went unbothered as they examined the TARDIS' exterior.

"Most remarkable," the man said.

"And most anachronistic," the woman sniffed. "This design of police box doesn't come into existence for another 17 years(4)."

"Better that than being a police box where none exist at all," the man said.

"Indeed," the woman said.

The man frowned, and looked at the woman. "Did I just triumph in a debate with you?"

"A small triumph, but a triumph nonetheless," the woman said. "Don't let it get to your head."

"I'm more in peril of letting _this_ get to my head," the man said, patting the side of the TARDIS. He blinked, in puzzlement. "Is it just me…or is this…"

The woman blinked, before prompting the man with, "Yes, is this…?"

"Is this thing… _alive_?"

The woman blinked again, before going over to the machine, and touching it. "Yes…" she murmured. "It _is_ alive. What's more, it's aware. And I believe that it does not like us."

"Why ever not? Did we do something to offend it?"

"I believe it is because we exist. Or more to the point, we exist as the way we do: as living paradoxes," the woman said quietly. "As beings who both exist, and don't exist. Quantum ghosts. Nature abhors vacuums and paradoxes. It seems so too do living time machines(5)."

"And what of the Doctor and Summerfield?" the man said.

"They knew about the mark, and helped conceal it, so that could be a point in their favour. All the same, judging by what the Doctor said, he may not take kindly to what we have done, and what we are doing. We will keep an eye on the three of them, and see how the situation unfolds." She crooked her arm, and he hooked his around it, a gentleman about to escort a lady to their destination. "I believe the coin toss is coming soon."

"Shall we test the Doctor and Summerfield?"

"No point. However…I wonder…now that he has met them…will the coin come up tails?"

 **CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **Chapter 2 down. We have Booker meeting the Doctor and Benny. And two people (whose identity is pretty blatantly obvious to anyone who has played the game, and whose identity will be revealed next chapter, ahead of when the game does so) are meeting the TARDIS.**

 **The next chapter will focus a bit on Elizabeth, prior to meeting Booker.**

 **1\. The first telephone booth was established in London in 1903, though some sources, according to Wikipedia, claim an earlier on in Germany. I dunno when the first telephone booths came out in the US, though, but I decided to have Booker recognise the TARDIS as some kind of phone booth.**

 **2\. No, really. Surprise IS her middle name. Don't ask.**

 **3\. Duggan, a private detective, helped and hindered the Doctor and Romana during the events of** ** _City of Death_** **. However, at the end of the story, he landed what the Doctor said was the 'most important punch in history'. Long story, and it's a good one, being written by Douglas Adams (yes, that one, albeit under a pseudonym) from a story by David Fisher.**

 **4\. She's right. The first police box did come into existence in the late 1800s, but the type familiar as the TARDIS didn't come into existence until 1929.**

 **5\. They wouldn't be the last. Viewers of the new series will know how the TARDIS treated Jack Harkness and Clara for being living paradoxes (well, the former is an immortal rather than a paradox** ** _per se_** **, but still…), and during the Big Finish audios, the TARDIS has a similar attitude to the Eighth Doctor's companion, Charley 'Charlotte' Pollard (who was rescued from an airship disaster when she was meant to have died), an attitude that culminates during the events of** ** _Zagreus_** **.**


	4. Chapter 3: A Toss of the Coin

**CHAPTER 3:**

 **A TOSS OF THE COIN**

The man was a towering, cowering construct of brass, glass, and steam. Misshapen and unwieldy, he looked like a man all but lost in a gorilla-proportioned suit of armour…until you saw the still-beating heart behind the glass porthole in his chest. He was crouching, warding off the flashes from the camera and the attention of the crowd, even as the hawker next to him proclaimed the benefits of getting the body of a Handyman.

"That poor man," Bernice murmured. "He's like a steampunk Cyberman, isn't he?"

The Doctor nodded sadly. "With one key difference. He can still feel pain and emotion. More pitiable than a Cyberman, but also potentially more dangerous. If he reacts badly…"

"Yeah, I can imagine. Like a smaller King Kong rampaging through New York."

"What do you mean, Cyberman?" Booker asked. "Have you seen something like this before?"

"Too many times," the Doctor said. He then noticed that Booker had an elaborate, green bottle in his hand. It had a stylised sculpture of a beautiful, robed woman draped over it. It vaguely reminded the Doctor of the Green Fairy, the famous icon associated with absinthe. "What is that?" he asked, frowning.

"Something called a Vigor," Booker said. He indicated a stall with a female hawker with a basket, filled not with flowers, but with similar bottles. "When I drank it…well, I saw things."

"That was rather unwise," the Doctor said, taking the bottle and examining it. The label on the back seemed to indicate that it granted…powers to the drinker. Psi-powers in a bottle…assuming it was psychic, and not something else. He remembered that the psionic abilities of the Daemons were mistaken for magic, and black magic at that. But there were other powers, like those of the Carrionites, or the block-transfer computations of the Logopolitians(1). Then again, all three of those were extinct, or virtually extinct.

 _From what time and space did the manufacturers of this potion plunder this?_ the Doctor mused.

They approached a gate with an automaton guarding it, little more than an animated mannequin mated to a vending machine of sorts. " _Sorry, fellas!_ " it said. " _The raffle's all sold out! Entrance reserved for important dignitaries and very important personages alone._ "

The Doctor began fishing around in his pockets, only for Booker to gesture, and a green, ghostly shape of a woman flew from him, and caressed the machine. The automaton then said, " _Well, if it isn't Assemblyman Buford and guests! Your spot at the raffle awaits! Don't know why I didn't recognise you before. Odd. Always good to have gentlemen of your calibre at our fine fairgrounds!_ "

Booker smiled at the Doctor as the gate opened. "Handy, huh?"

"Indeed," the Doctor said, as they walked through the gates…and were intercepted by a pair of people. One was a man, the other a woman. Both had red hair, tan suits, and had features that were mildly attractive, but rather bland. The woman held a platter, while the man wore a blackboard like a sandwich board. 'Heads' in one column, 'tails' in another was scrawled on the blackboard. Improbably, the results showed that there had been at least two dozen heads, but no tails.

"Heads?" the man asked.

"Or tails?" the woman asked.

"Come on, let us through," Booker complained.

The man tossed a coin to Booker, and insisted, "Heads?"

"Or tails?" the woman concluded.

The Doctor frowned. "What is it?" Benny asked.

The Doctor waved at her to be quiet, just as Booker tossed the coin. It spun through the air, hit the platter…and came up heads.

"Disappointing," the woman remarked as she chalked another tally mark on the blackboard.

"Indeed. I was hoping for some variation."

The Doctor peered around the man, finding another blackboard on the man's back, and the 'heads' column filled with tally marks. But not a single one in the 'tails' column. Not outside the realms of possibility, but highly improbable.

"Chin up. There's always next time," the woman said.

"Excuse me?" the Doctor asked the man and the woman. Something was not quite right about the pair, least of which that they appeared to be twins.

"Yes?" the man replied.

"Can we help you?"

"I daresay you already have," the Doctor said. "Though what you have done already is more than a little irresponsible…Rosalind Lutece."

The man and woman looked at each other. "He _is_ good, isn't he?" the man said.

"Good is debatable, as he is acting with knowledge from the future. Then again, so too is Comstock," the woman, or rather, Rosalind Lutece, remarked. She then looked at the Doctor. "And who are _you_ to speak of responsibility, Doctor? A renegade time traveller from Gallifrey? Known to the Daleks as _Ka Faraq Gatri(_ _2)_ _?_ "

"Accompanied by an archaeologist who called herself 'professor' long before she had actual qualifications?" the man added.

"You know very well," the Doctor said, coolly. He had noticed that their turning his argument back on itself was more of a rhetorical tactic than out of any desire to hurt him or Benny. "I am here to stop the meddling in time. You know what I mean."

"Yes, we do," the man said.

"But do _you_ know?" Rosalind asked.

"Enough with the chatter," Booker said. "Are you my employers?"

"You could say that," Rosalind said. "Rosalind…"

"…And Robert Lutece, at your service," the man said.

"Though you are currently at ours," Rosalind finished.

"Why are you here?" Booker demanded. "If you're here, wasting my time with coin tosses, when I could be getting to the job at hand…"

"Our apologies, Mr DeWitt," Robert said.

"Don't let us detain you," Rosalind said.

Booker scowled, before moving off, Benny following him. Just before the Doctor left, Rosalind said, "Wait."

"Yes?" the Doctor asked.

Rosalind handed the Doctor a piece of paper. "When you use the TARDIS at the Raffle, send it to these coordinates. You'll understand why when the time comes. It also has what information you need to cripple the Siphon. And help Mr DeWitt extract the girl."

"I used to do this sort of thing all the time," the Doctor mused, examining the paper. "Sending little notes to myself from the future(3). I'm surprised you two get along as well as you do. I don't always get along with other iterations of myself, past or future. Of course, in my case, it is serial, thanks to time travel and regeneration. Whereas you two…it is parallel. The same person, separated, initially at least, only by a single chromosome. It'd be quite fascinating, if it weren't so dangerous." He then doffed his hat politely, smiled, and said, "Be seeing you."

* * *

Booker stared at the statue, as did Summerfield. As he had approached, it had been the statue of a man, holding above his palm a floating city. In fact, it looked like Robert Lutece. But before he could get close enough to look at the legend at the statue's feet, it rippled, warped, and distorted, an actinic wave of energy climbing up it, and leaving change in its wake. Now, it was the statue of a woman, and while he could see who it was before, the dedication left no doubt.

"So your friend Dr Smith was right," Booker said, looking at the statue. "She's Rosalind Lutece. But how did he know?"

Summerfield looked around, discreetly, before saying, "We weren't lying about being time travellers, you know."

"You were lying…well, Smith lied about you being an archaeologist," Booker pointed out.

"Well, I did early on in my career. I actually earned my qualifications, both in the field and academically," Summerfield said.

"But I've never come across a woman who was an archaeologist," Booker said.

"Like I said, we are time travellers. I was born in the year 2540. The Doctor…that's what he prefers to call himself, he's an alien."

"What, like a Martian? Like in that book of HG Wells'? But he looks like a man."

"You look like a Time Lord to me," Smith said, as he ambled over. "We evolved first. If we had a stethoscope, you could listen to my hearts."

"Hearts? You have more than one?" Booker demanded.

"Two hearts, yes. Now, what seems to be the problem?"

"The statue, Doctor, it changed before our eyes," Summerfield said, tapping the statue. "One moment, it was Robert Lutece, and the next, well…there was a sort of… _wavefront_ of energy that changed it."

Smith peered at the statue. "Dimensional instability," was his enigmatic verdict.

"And what is THAT supposed to mean?" Booker demanded.

"Well, if my theory is correct, the Luteces want us to work together now," Smith said. "They told me to help you extract the girl. And if my calculations are correct, then we have a ready-made escape route."

"Escape route?" Booker asked. "You mean a way off this city when we get the girl?"

"Yes," Smith said. "But I wonder…what do two versions of the same quantum physicist want with a girl?"

"Good question," Booker said. "I've got a better one, Dr Smith, if you have the answers. Why can't I remember them as my employers?"

Smith looked at him sharply, before saying, "That _is_ a good question. You said you were a private detective. Pinkertons?"

"Used to be," Booker said. "And what of you two? Summerfield claims that you're time travellers. Why are time travellers interested in Columbia?"

"Because it doesn't exist in our universe. And someone in Columbia is stealing from the future, or at least the future as you know it. That song you heard, Mr DeWitt, comes from 1966." Smith peered at him. "You're sceptical, but you are willing to concede that it might be true."

"Doc…have you looked around?" Booker said, gesturing with his head at the floating city around them.

"True. I have seen more impossible things," Smith said. "But have you?"

Booker shook his head. "I've seen a lot in my life, but nothing like this. Say that you are a time traveller…you can't go back and stop me from…"

Smith, seeing where he was going, shook his head. "Some laws of time I overlook quite readily. Others, I have to obey, or else the universe may unravel like a poorly-knitted jumper." After a moment, he asked, "What event you were thinking of?"

"…Wounded Knee."

Smith and Summerfield shared a look. Then, Smith said, sympathetically, "I cannot erase the past or change it, not wholesale. If it helps, I know what it is like to have blood on my hands. But I can help you now. Redemption is an ongoing process. Believe me, I know. You can't just wash away all your sins in a single stroke."

"That blind priest probably thought otherwise," Booker said. "Baptised me before I was allowed into Columbia, but damn near drowned me in the process."

They began walking away from the statue, only to stop and look at the poster in front of them. It was the same poster, albeit bigger, that Smith and Summerfield had. Eventually, he said, "You said those in charge of Columbia are using time travel to identify me as this False Shepherd?"

"They probably used the same method to plagiarise that song," Smith said. "At the very least, they have the ability to look into the future."

"That might explain something," Booker mused. "When I first got here, I watched a kinetoscope claiming that Comstock knew when a storm hitting Columbia would end. I thought it might be because he's a charlatan, but if he actually knows the future…"

"True. But I have the feeling that it may very well be more."

* * *

They made it to the Raffle, where a stage had been set up in the middle of a park. A moustached man, whom they had identified from posters they had passed as Jeremiah Fink, was holding forth. A man with a ratty demeanour, a well-styled moustache, and an oleaginous air suitable to an MC, or a snake-oil salesman. He was also apparently the one responsible for the Vigor Booker had imbibed.

They were offered a baseball as part of the Raffle, which the Doctor took. Benny frowned when she saw the number 77 scrawled on it. Seconds later, the draw began, and the number 77 was drawn. The Doctor's frown became even more pronounced when his prize was announced: first throw at something Benny was appalled at. A public stoning, updated for the early 20th century.

The curtains were whipped open, and two people, tied to stakes, were wheeled out, a white man, and a black woman, both pleading for mercy. Grotesque cutouts of racist caricatures formed a background, with a grotesque parody of an African native, looking more like an ape, and dressed in a parody of a minister's outfit, behind them. A jaunty piano version of the Bridal March tinkled out. Judging by what they said as they plead for mercy, their only crime was to get married…in a city where racial purity reigned supreme. _Shades of the Fifth Axis, and Skaro_ , Benny thought(4).

The Doctor quickly schooled himself, before saying, in his fake Southern drawl, "Mr Fink, can I make an alternate suggestion?"

"What's that I hear, sir? Please don't tell me you take your coffee _black_ ," Fink said. And to Benny's disgust (and, she was heartened to note, to Booker's), the crowd laughed at the racist witticism.

"Of course not!" the Doctor said. "But I thought, Mr Fink, why not make it even more spectacular? Why settle for a stoning, when I have a means of making the punishment fit the crime?"

"Well then, good sir, how would one go about doing that?" Fink asked.

"Good question, Mr Fink. I will be back within a second," the Doctor said.

Benny wondered what his game was, until he left the park area. Within seconds, the familiar sound of the TARDIS arriving filled the stage, and the impish features of the Doctor poked themselves out of the time machine. "I told you so."

Fink was astonished, but recovered quickly. "Why, what a miraculous contraption…" He seemed to fish for a name.

"Doctor John Smith, magician extraordinaire," the Doctor said, raising his hat. He then gestured to the TARDIS with a flourish. "And this is my magical cabinet of many things! It allows me to disappear and reappear anywhere I wish! But it is not just a conveyance!" His expression darkened. "It is also a means of… _execution_."

Booker tensed, only for Benny to grab his hand. "He knows what he is doing," she hissed quietly. "He would never stand for this."

Fink seemed to consider the Doctor's words, before saying, "Very well. How spectacular is it?"

"You will hear them screaming, and see their ashes scattered upon the aether ere a minute is out," the Doctor growled.

Fink, after a moment's thought, nodded. "Okay. As long as you make it spectacular."

"It will be," the Doctor assured him, before taking the couple, and shoving them into the TARDIS. Some seconds passed, before suddenly, they began screaming, as if in agony. Unearthly light strobed within the doorway of the TARDIS, and as the screams cut off, pungent and acrid smoke billowed out. The Doctor gave a bow.

The crowd looked on bemused, before some of them began to clap enthusiastically. A few scowled at having their sport stolen from them. But then, Fink looked at Booker, and at his hand. "Officers, that man! Remove that handkerchief!"

Before Booker could do anything, he was seized, and the handkerchief removed. There was a collective gasp as the letters 'A.D' were exposed, branded on the hand.

"No, where'd you get that brand, boy?" Fink growled. "Don't you know that makes you the back-stabbing, snake-in-the-grass False Shepherd?" He then scowled at Benny and the Doctor. "Which makes you two…his apostate apostles! A False Flock, for a False Shepherd!"

As Benny was grabbed from behind by police officers, a police officer brought out a wicked-looking device, three hooks arranged in a wheel that spun on the end of a wrist-mounted apparatus. The hooks began to spin, clearly capable of carving through flesh. As the officer approached Booker with the device, Fink said, "And we ain't letting no False Shepherd or his False Flock mingle with our own. Show him what we have planned for him, boys!"

 **CHAPTER 3 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **Holy shit, 3 chapters in two days. Aren't you guys lucky? Don't let it get to your head, though. The fast updates may soon be a thing of the past.**

 **I originally planned a scene with Elizabeth in her library to open the chapter, but thought I'd hold it back for a later chapter. Anyway, as you may have noticed, the Raffle scene played out both differently and the same as in canon. The mixed-race couple will be slightly more prominent in this story than in the original game.**

 **And the Doctor has identified the Luteces, and who they are. It looks like they may be allies, for the moment.**

 **1\. Those familiar with the new series will know the Carrionites, witch-like aliens whose science resembles magic. The Daemons were alien beings of tremendous power over matter and energy, and whose appearance gave rise to the myths of the Devil and other horned gods, at least according to** ** _Doctor Who: The Daemons_** **. And the Logopolitians were a species of mathematicians who could manipulate matter with mathematics, using that power to stave off the end of the universe. The Logopolitians, and the story,** ** _Logopolis_** **, play an important part in the backstory of my other** ** _Doctor Who_** **crossover fic,** ** _Time and Entropy_** **.**

 **2\. While in the new series, the Doctor is called the 'Oncoming Storm' by the Daleks, in the New Adventures (as well as the novelisation of** ** _Remembrance of the Daleks_** **), the Doctor gained the sobriquet 'the Destroyer of Worlds', or** ** _Ka Faraq Gatri_** **in their language. Funnily enough, the Draconians (who have been the Doctor's** ** _allies_** **) were the ones who, in the New Adventures novels, called the Doctor the Oncoming Storm.**

 **3\. As far as I know, the only time he actually did this in the classic series was in** ** _Battlefield_** **. However, he did this more often in the New Adventures, and in the Big Finish audios.**

 **4\. The Fifth Axis was a Nazi-like organisation in the Bernice Summerfield series.**


	5. Chapter 4: Flight Through Columbia

**CHAPTER 4:**

 **FLIGHT THROUGH COLUMBIA**

The Doctor, who hadn't yet been restrained, acted then, throwing the very baseball he had won at Fink's head. With a cry of pain, the man staggered, distracting the police officers holding Bernice and Booker. Bernice drove an elbow into the stomach of one of her captors before punching him, and managed to shove away the other. Booker, meanwhile, took one of his captors by the shoulder, and shoved him face-first into the spinning hooked device. The device dug deep into the man's skull, spraying blood and gore everywhere.

"Stop him!" Fink screamed. "STOP HIM! THE FALSE SHEPHERD AND HIS FALSE FLOCK HAVE COME TO LEAD THE LAMB ASTRAY!"

Benny ran over and smashed him in the face with her fist. "Bastard!" She then rubbed at her hand. Bastard had a hard head.

Fink slumped, unconscious, just as the TARDIS began to disappear with its customary roar. "Doctor!" Benny yelled. "The TARDIS…!"

"Is where we'll need it to be, apparently," the Doctor said, watching in horror as Booker fought the police officers attacking them. Booker fought with brutal efficiency, using the device, which he had taken from the skull of the unfortunate officer, to enhance his attacks. "Booker! This way!" he yelled, gesturing to the stage.

Booker clambered onto the stage, Benny following him soon after. As they dove through the curtains, the Doctor spotted something, and smiled. "Paint for the backdrops," he said. He drenched the floor with it as Benny and Booker fled, making sure not to have any get on their shoes, and thus leave a trail. But with any luck, it might slow down their pursuers, making them slip.

Clambering over a wall (with considerable difficulty in Benny's case), the Doctor, Benny, and Booker made it over the fence. "Doc," Booker hissed quietly, as they looked around the square, police officers swarming around, "that cabinet of yours would come in handy right about now."

"True, but it is needed elsewhere, and elsewhen," the Doctor murmured. He spotted an automaton, mounted on a column, and pointing a machine gun at the area. He also saw some fireworks on trolleys around the square. He fished around in his pockets until he removed his sonic screwdriver. "We need a distraction. Several, loud, noisy distractions will do."

"And what will that…magic wand thing do?" Booker asked, peering at the sonic screwdriver.

"A lot," Benny said with a smile. She knew what was coming.

The first target was the automaton, which, after aiming at it for several seconds with the sonic screwdriver, it exploded in a shower of sparks. Automatically, the police officers scurried around to the wreckage. And that was when the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at the fireworks. He remembered using landmines to drive off a Sea Devil pursuing him and Jo Grant(1).

The fireworks went off noisily, and in the ensuing chaos, the police officers were so stunned by the display that the Doctor, Benny, and Booker managed to sneak by. One police officer was blasted to the ground, injured and stunned, but alive, thanks to one fireworks blast, and Booker took the opportunity to pilfer a gun from the man's hand. And just in time, for the officers saw them, and began firing. Booker fired back, more to make them dive for cover.

Then, one of the officers yelled, "A Fireman is coming! Clear the area! Leave the anarchists to the Fireman!"

"Fireman?" the Doctor asked, looking at Bernice with a worried expression as they made for a gate. "Something tells me he's not here to put out fires…"

They reached another square, but one that was wreathed in flames. And a bizarre figure in bulky, padded clothing and a bizarre helmet with glowing slits confronted them. " _BURN IN THE NAME OF THE PROPHET!_ " the apparition roared.

"Scatter!" the Doctor yelled, and the three of them dashed in separate directions as the figure flung a burning lump of matter in their direction, which promptly exploded like an incendiary grenade.

The Doctor hid, and watched as the Fireman stalked around, trying to find his prey. The suit seemed insulated, but within, if the harsh light filtering through the helmet was any indication, was fire. It seemed like the man was burning alive, and yet, somehow, kept alive. But for what purpose?

The Doctor didn't know what purpose it was exactly, but the Fireman was certainly a powerful combatant. He could also feel the heat radiating off the Fireman, particularly from the metal helmet…which gave him an idea. Dousing the flames with water might not work, but what about the Fireman himself? Especially the doubtlessly scorching-hot helmet? After all, thermal shock was a powerful weapon in certain cases. And there was a fire hydrant nearby.

Booker took a potshot at the Fireman, leading him away from where Benny was hidden. The Doctor then leapt into action, crouching near the hydrant, and got his sonic screwdriver out. He tested it with a careful use, and found that the hydrant would activate, when he was ready. In what had to be a daring or reckless move, he stood, and called out, "Excuse me? I'm wondering whether you can help me! I'm performing an experiment in thermal shock!"

The Fireman roared as he spun around, and began charging at the Doctor. The Doctor activated the sonic screwdriver, and then leapt to the side as a geyser of water smashed into the rampaging juggernaut. The howl of rage turned into howls of pain as the helmet of the Fireman suddenly split, filling the air with vile smoke and flame. The water continued to douse the Fireman, and whatever systems allowed the poor soul to survive while immolated within the suit, failed as the water kept running into it. Eventually, the Fireman sagged to the ground, collapsing, with a terminal wheeze.

Booker got out of hiding, staring at the Fireman in horror. Not because the Fireman was dead, but because of what had happened while he was alive. And then, there was the fact that he didn't know what the Doctor had done. "What the hell was that?"

The Doctor knelt down next to the Fireman, and poked at the remains. "Some sort of elite soldier."

"It threw lumps of…something," Booker said, as Benny came over. "Things that burst into flames." He found a familiar bottle nearby. Unlike the Possession Vigor, this Vigor had a naked devil woman caressing the stopper, and was fiery red in colour. "Devil's Kiss. Another Vigor."

"Must've been what this man had, amongst other things. What is it with fanatics and purging with fire?" Benny remarked.

"I think this poor man was as much a victim as he was a killer," the Doctor said. "The suit is like a torture chamber. Designed to keep him alive, even as he was cooking like a Sunday roast. Perhaps Comstock made it for those he felt needed to be penitent."

"That's obscene," Benny muttered.

"You'll get no argument from me," Booker said. He eyed the bottle in his hand, before shrugging. "I might as well try this, though. That Possession Vigor was handy. Never know when we'll be making new friends around here." And with that, he knocked back the bottle, only to start screaming. His hands seemed to burst into flames, the fire rapidly eating them down to the bone…

…Only to suddenly be restored to normal. The Doctor and Benny blinked. What the hell was that? Hallucination? Or was that the power of the Vigors?

Nearby was a restaurant, docked to the square where they had fought the Fireman. The Blue Ribbon. Maybe there, they could regroup.

* * *

In the small, lavish foyer of the restaurant, Booker looked at his two…hangers-on? Companions? Assistants? Fellow detectives? Hindrances? Well, he couldn't say that last about either of them, actually. The woman knew how to handle herself in a fight, and Smith was handy in that he could come up with unexpected ways to stop an enemy.

"Okay…" he said. "Before we go any further, I want the full story from you guys. Why you're here, and what you're gonna do."

"Very well, as long as you do the same, Mr DeWitt," Smith said. He looked at Summerfield, before saying, "Although I introduced myself as John Smith, I prefer to be known as the Doctor. John Smith is my habitual pseudonym when humans want more than a title. Benny and I both come from the future, several centuries to be precise. In addition, we come from a parallel universe, where historical events are different. Obviously, the massacre at Wounded Knee happened in both timelines, but Columbia doesn't exist in our universe. Rosalind Lutece died before graduating university in our universe as well. Benny came across wreckage and artifacts from Columbia on a distant planet, presumably coming from a rift in time and space. I found out where they came from, and we came to investigate."

"You said someone sent you. Who did so?"

"A group of my own people. Bernice is as human as you are, but I come from a planet where time travel has long since been mastered. My people call themselves the Time Lords, a pretentious name if there ever was one, but they consider themselves the guardians of time and space. Columbia has been engaged in dangerous experiments in, at the very least, viewing future times, taking art and technology that has no place in this time. We're here to stop that."

Booker rubbed the back of his head, before saying, "That's crazy. But not much more crazy than what I've seen. What about those two? The Luteces? They seemed to know you."

"They are the originators of the technology, though I've got the feeling that if they abused it, they are trying to make up for it. Anyway, your turn."

"Not much to say," Booker said. "I had a lot of gambling debts, and I've got attention from the wrong kind of people. My employer wants me to bring them the girl, and in exchange, they'll wipe away the debts. The Luteces, I'm pretty sure, were the ones who rowed me over to the lighthouse. Kept going on about an experiment and rowing. They gave me a box full of things, including a code to a rocket, concealed in that lighthouse, that sent me up here. There's also a key, as well as photos of the girl. Her name's Elizabeth. Beyond that, I don't know. All I do know is that I'm meant to take her back to New York City."

"So, we have some excellent questions to ask," the Doctor mused. "Why can't you remember that the Luteces are your employers? Why do they want this girl so badly?"

"And why can't they do this themselves?" Benny asked.

The Doctor smiled. "Let's ask them, shall we?"

He moved around the corner, with Benny and Booker following, to come across the Luteces in the restaurant proper. Robert was cleaning the bar, and Rosalind was holding a tray with a flask, filled with a yellow liquid within. It would have looked funny, had there not been the corpse of a man slumped at the bar. "Your handiwork, I believe?" the Doctor asked, indicating the corpse.

"An assassin, lying in wait for Mr DeWitt," Robert said.

"Ordered by Comstock to ambush him," Rosalind added. "Like the lighthouse keeper."

Booker blinked in sudden realisation, remembering the mysterious note from 'C' that he had found near the corpse he had found in the lighthouse. "That was you two?"

"Indeed," Rosalind said.

"While our actions are limited…" Robert said.

"We can help ease the way," Rosalind concluded, before nodding at the flask. "Aperitif?"

"Gesundheit," Benny said facetiously. She then turned to the Doctor. "Doctor…we know who they are. But what are they?"

"Beings who are both everywhere and nowhere," the Doctor proclaimed. "Quantum ghosts. Virtually omniscient, but not omnipotent, lest they collapse the waveform they exist as in the wrong way. They were human, once. Technically, they count as human. But they are capable of moving anywhere in time and space merely by thinking about it, observing themselves in that place, and thus making it so."

"How can you tell?" Benny asked.

"I'm a Time Lord. My instincts are screaming at two 'abominations' who should not exist. The TARDIS confirmed what I suspected when I went back to use it to save those two people at the Raffle. Not only that, but they are the same person, just from different universes, and with different genders."

Booker found this talk getting to be…well, painful. The Doctor threw around words that Booker had little or no grasp of. He needed a drink, and he went over to Rosalind. "Will that help prevent headaches?" he asked, waving at the flask.

"Along with many other injuries," Rosalind said. "Don't drink too much. A share is needed for the Doctor and Professor Summerfield."

The Doctor, intrigued, watched as Booker drank the liquid. Briefly, a golden skin shimmered around Booker. "Surprising," Rosalind said.

"Surprising that it worked?" Robert asked.

"Surprising that it didn't kill him."

"But a magnetic-repulsive field around one's body can come in handy," Robert pointed out.

"If it doesn't kill you."

"A fair point."

Benny looked at the Doctor. "Never mind us giving Booker a headache, these two are giving _me_ a headache."

"True. But that infusion will come in handy, especially as I am sure bullets will feature heavily in our future," the Doctor said, striding forward, and taking the bottle from Booker's hand. "Does it come in a ginger pop flavour?"

"Sadly, no. If we ever get to market it, we will consider that," Rosalind remarked.

The Doctor drank from the flask, and then handed it to Benny. "Hmm. Like lemonade."

"It will last for a few weeks given that dose. More than enough time, I believe, to protect you from bullets," Rosalind said.

"Good," the Doctor said. "Regenerating because I got shot. How embarrassing(2)."

As Benny drank the last serving of the infusion, Robert came over with a pair of devices, similar to the one that Booker currently wielded. "Take these."

"I don't take weapons," the Doctor said. "Unless necessary."

"Their primary purpose is not as weapons," Robert said.

"They are Sky-Hooks. You'll need them to reach Monument Island," Rosalind replied. "Special field, not unlike magnetism, on both freight hooks and Sky-Lines help you attach to them, as well as move down Sky-Lines at great speed."

"Good…because I've already regenerated after falling off a radio telescope(3). I'd prefer not to fall to my death again."

"Hence the coordinates we gave you," Rosalind said. She seemed to be the de-facto spokesperson and leader of the Lutece twins. "Do not show us that our faith in you is mistaken, Doctor. Retrieve the girl."

"But why?" the Doctor asked. "Why do two quantum physicists need a girl so badly?"

"It is not _we_ who need her, Doctor…" Robert said.

"We are retrieving her for her father," Rosalind admitted.

"Comstock considers her his daughter…"

"But in truth…we helped take her from her father." Rosalind then looked vaguely ashamed. "This…is our redemption as much as it is Mr DeWitt's. Our settling of our own debt before we explore our current state's potential to the fullest."

"But she has abilities that Comstock intends to exploit…and he intends to mould her in his image."

"Of a prophet of the fire and brimstone variety."

"Raining hellfire on all those who oppose her and her father's vision."

"That being virtually anyone outside Columbia."

"The world below he calls Sodom."

"And you know what happened to Sodom in the Bible," Rosalind concluded.

"Destroyed by fire," Benny whispered, horrified.

"Indeed. Comstock will not stop until the world is either subjugated under him…" Rosalind paused for dramatic effect. "…Or burned to ashes while he and his flock stay in the skies. He must be stopped."

 **CHAPTER 4 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **Well, there you go. Hope you enjoyed that chapter. I found it interesting trying to have the Doctor figure out ways to get by the police officers and the Fireman that didn't involve shooting a gun, and using a hydrant and thermal shock felt like a good way to defeat the Fireman. Dunno whether it would work in real life, but both** ** _Doctor Who_** **and** ** _BioShock_** **are very much fictional, so allow for some artistic licence.**

 **1\. This happened in** ** _Doctor Who: The Sea Devils_** **. The Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to both detect mines, and to set them off to deter a Sea Devil pursuing them.**

 **2\. This is actually what happens to the Seventh Doctor in the TV Movie. Or rather, he gets shot, but non-fatally. However, the surgeons think he has a heart condition, and try to fix it. Unfortunately, they don't realise he has two hearts: the x-ray is thought to be a double exposure.**

 **3\. This happened at the end of** ** _Doctor Who: Logopolis_** **, the last story of the Doctor's Fourth incarnation.**


	6. Chapter 5: A Confrontation with Comstock

**CHAPTER 5:**

 **A CONFRONTATION WITH COMSTOCK**

"…And the False Shepherd, and those two other apostates…they managed to get the better of you, Fink?"

Jeremiah Fink didn't like answering to the man who was the leader of Columbia. Zachary Hale Comstock was the soul of Columbia, but Fink, who had a somewhat more pragmatic attitude to anatomy, believed himself to be Columbia's heart: the great pump that kept industry flowing and the city aloft, and thanks to his dealing with the Luteces, he consider himself to be its true brains. But like it or not, the Great Prophet was the leader of Columbia.

Even so, Fink got the impression that Comstock was enjoying watching Fink squirm. So, perhaps unwisely, he said, "They did, yes. But did you see _this_ outcome, Comstock?" _You ARE meant to be a Prophet, after all_ , he left unsaid. He knew that that may be one act of insolence too far. Fink was one of the few people who could criticise Comstock in any way and get away with it, but even this indulgence had limits. And Fink preferred not to see the colour of his own gizzards.

"No," Comstock admitted. "Or rather, not until recently."

"What do you mean, not until recently?" Fink demanded.

"Of late…I have been experiencing visions that I have confused with prophecy, and I had my doubts. After all, I am…ill, Jeremiah. Some of the things I have seen through the Tears are confused, jumbled, and sometimes, I have seen things that have made me doubt my sanity and my faith. Things that could have been sent by God, or the Devil, or by the illness eating my brain. But now that you have told me about this, I know what is true." Comstock's gaze bore into Fink's own. The bearded, paternal man's face was set in a determined expression. "The future is not clear still, Jeremiah, but who these people are is. The woman comes from over six centuries hence into the future, but she is a human, though of English descent. But the man…he comes from another time, and another world entirely. Though he appears to be human, he is a foreigner from another world. They call themselves Lords of Time. Pah! There is only one true Lord in Heaven. He has come in that cabinet of his to stop us. The cabinet can travel through the heavens and up and down the river of time. He thinks he is righteous, that he is a god compared to mortal men. I intend to reveal unto him his folly."

"Who is more dangerous?" Fink asked. "The False Shepherd DeWitt? Or this Doctor Smith?"

"All three are a danger. The Summerfield woman is no stranger to causing trouble, and she allowed herself to be sullied by the seed of a dog that walked upright like a man(1)," DeWitt said. "And DeWitt is more dangerous still. But Smith, or rather, the Doctor, is the most dangerous of the lot. His weapons are his mind and cunning. We must stop them before they reach Monument Island. I will deal with them myself. I will lure them into a trap. It may cost me a few of my followers, but they will go to glory…and these three will tumble forever more into burning perdition." Comstock tapped his desk pensively. "They're not the only trouble. Leaving aside the Vox Populi rabble, Slate is apparently making his move. My sources tell me that he has made an accord with Fitzroy, and is looking to strike at us. The Vox are already a veritable irritation. Slate, however, can give them more power. I am sending my men to deal with Slate. He is apparently using the Hall of Heroes as a staging ground. But the three newcomers, the False Shepherd, the Doctor, and the Slattern…they warrant my personal attention."

* * *

The library was richly appointed, filled to the brim with books of all kinds. From theology to quantum physics, from history to lockpicking. The décor would have been the envy of many a mansion. To many a bibliophile and intellectual, it would have been heaven.

But it was still very much a cage. A gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless. This was something that the girl currently looking outside the window was aware of, despite having known nothing else.

She was in her late teens, black-haired, blue-eyed, and beautiful. She was dressed, as she often was, in a white dress with a long, blue skirt. Her expression, as she looked out the window, was pensive. In her hand was clutched a half-forgotten book, _The Principles of Quantum Mechanics_ by Rosalind Lutece.

She watched as the fireworks were set off. She had some small idea why: today was July 6, 1912. The day Columbia seceded from the United States, or, to put it like the books said, 'from the Sodom below'.

Despite having little else but these books, Elizabeth (for that was the girl's name) had developed a critical mind. It was partly because she had been aware of her imprisonment, albeit not why, so while she could not rebel in any physical way, she set her mind to dissecting the arguments set forth in many of the books here. Only in her mind was she free to do what she wanted. Only in her mind could she spread her wings.

A thought occurred to her, and she smirked slightly, with a somewhat bitter, sardonic edge to it. It was ironic, really. Instead of a bird in a cage, she was in the cage, and the bird was her warden, her keeper.

As if on cue, she heard the distinctive loud trill of Songbird. It was the cue for her meal to be delivered. Elizabeth sighed. She had mixed feelings about Songbird. He was her jailer, and she knew that any attempt to escape would be punished harshly. But the biomechanical construct was the closest thing she had to a parent, even a friend. He had even played with her when she was younger.

But she would never be free, not with him as her jailer. Only in her mind could she be free.

Still, she had had dreams. She had had them for as long as she could remember. Dreams of a handsome, if hard-faced man. Of blood, insanity, and death. But last night, she had more in her dream. Of a short, morose-looking man with an umbrella and a straw hat, and a dark-haired older woman with a cheerfully cynical demeanour. Of a blue box, mundane on the outside, but within, a treasure trove of wonders. It felt unlike, but not unlike, one of her Tears.

 _A shame that it would forever remain a dream_ , she thought, as she went to take her meal.

* * *

Riding a Sky-Line was very exhilarating, Benny reflected. It was certainly a past-time any adrenaline junkie would appreciate. Needless to say, once this business with Columbia was over, she was never going to do anything of the sort ever again. Besides the kilometres-high drop into the clouds that was inevitably lethal, there was the fact that people kept shooting at them. She was glad of the Lutece's little concoction, though. Rather handy, and she wondered whether they could give her and the Doctor a lifetime supply. Probably not. It seemed to be a one-off item. Or maybe they may not be able to use it outside of this universe. Shame, really.

She'd had more than her fair share of adventures away from the Doctor, from saving the last of the people of Excelis, all the way to motherhood. It was probably just as well she couldn't take Peter with her. Besides the fact it was no place to take an infant or child, there was the fact that they would view Peter as being worse than dirt for being part-human, and blatantly so. He looked half-human, half-dog, thanks to his Killoran father, Adrian Wall.

Columbia…it was a beautiful city. And there were plenty of good people, like a pro-African society they had to make their way through. But even enough of a cursory glance was enough to tell her that there was a lot wrong and rotten about it. And that was before they had made their way through the Temple of the Raven.

It was like the Columbian bastard mutant offspring of the Freemasons and the Ku Klux Klan, an organisation that espoused racial purity, and idolised John Wilkes Booth, while demonising Abraham Lincoln. Benny listened to many a Voxophone within the Temple, where Comstock made his contemptible views on race known. It wasn't that much of a gulf between Comstock's creed, and the creed of the Daleks.

They then came across a ceremonial hall, with that same damnable mural Benny had come across back on Dionysus 5. Booker had used one of the Vigors, Devil's Kiss, to scatter them away with what was effectively an organic incendiary grenade. On further progress, deeper into the Temple, they found a projector showing phrenological comparisons between Comstock's face and a pair of Native Americans. Booker was ignorant of phrenology(2), but took the Doctor and Benny's word for it that it was far from a science, but rather just a fanciful set of theories long-since disproven.

Then, they came across a Chinese prisoner who was being tortured by one of the members of the Temple. The fanatic used a swarm of crows, summoned from the very air, to murder the unfortunate prisoner. Booker paid him back in kind, obtaining a new Vigor, Murder of Crows. When more fanatics confronted them, they used the birds as a distraction while they made their escape.

As they made their way along the freight hooks away from the Temple, they heard descriptions of them for their arrest. The descriptions of the Doctor and Benny were mildly accurate, if highly unflattering (Benny, understandably, took issue to being described as 'slatternly'), but Booker was described as either a mulatto(3) dwarf, or a short one-eyed Frenchman.

They then had to use the Sky-Hooks on the Sky-Lines to get to Monument Island, as the sky-ferry had been shut down. And now, they were approaching a clock tower…with a whole squad of soldiers waiting for them, firing at them. Until suddenly, a voice boomed over a PA system. " _STAND DOWN, MEN! STAND DOWN!_ "

The three landed amongst the now-kneeling soldiers, who were praying. The Doctor frowned. "Hmm. 'Won't you come into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly," he murmured. He looked at Benny and Booker. "I think Mr Comstock wants an audience with us."

They found themselves near a lift, and beyond that, they could see an airship with a massive screen on it. As Booker pulled the lever to activate the lift platform, the screen sprang to life, showing the paternal, bearded visage of Comstock. " _I know why you've come, False Shepherd. I see every sin that blackens your soul. Wounded Knee, the Pinkertons, the drinking and the gambling…and of course, Anna._ "

The Doctor looked sharply at the brand on Booker's hand. "A.D," he said quietly to Bernice. "Anna DeWitt."

" _And now, to repay a debt_ ," Comstock continued, " _you've come for my Lamb. But not all debts can be repaid, Booker._ "

"You don't know me, pal!" Booker yelled.

" _Prophecy is my business, Mr DeWitt, just as blood is yours_ ," Comstock sneered back.

"Prophecy suggests that you have an innate gift for it," the Doctor retorted cheerfully. "Instead, you're merely cheating, using technology you have no right to to see the future, and plunder it. It's no gift from God, merely the abuse of the technology of Man."

" _So sanctimonious, Doctor. But I_ _ **know**_ _you. If DeWitt is wading in blood, you struggle to keep your head above the surface. Skaro, the Vervoids, Crinoth…all those times where you committed genocide. And what of Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Oliver, Adric, Peri, Evelyn, and Roz(_ _4)_ _?_ " Comstock's eyes then roved over to Benny. " _And Professor Summerfield, a charlatan and fraud, trying to escape the shame of her father's reputation(_ _5)_ _, and yet more than willing to be whore to a dog._ "

Benny felt a surge of anger deep within her. She snarled, "You're pathetic, Comstock! You think yourself better than everyone, but I've encountered fanatical idiots like you far too often. You're as common as the very people you despise!"

" _Bold words, from a mongrel's slattern_ ," Comstock sneered. " _Do you know why these men will die for me? Because I have seen the future in their glory, and hence they are content. What brought you to Columbia, Booker? 'Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt'? This will end in blood, DeWitt. But then again, it always does with you, doesn't it? It always ends in blood._ "

Booker seemed to convulse, bring a finger to his nose. A small flow of blood was trickling from his nostrils. Benny noticed the Doctor peering at Booker, who murmured, "…Jesus."

As the lift platform shuddered to a halt at the top of the clock tower, Comstock howled, " _You've come to lead my Lamb astray, but thy crook is bent and thy path is twisted! Go back to the Sodom from which you came! Go back!_ "

Through the clock tower, they fled, even as something began to bombard it. They soon found themselves near the very airship that Comstock's image had been projected from. Booker leapt across, slamming into a soldier and sending him screaming off the edge. Benny and the Doctor soon followed suit, finding Booker finishing off the last soldier.

The Doctor looked at the corpses in distaste. "Hey, Doc," Booker said, "they're trying to kill us."

"True," the Doctor murmured. He then looked at Booker. "But let's try and keep the bloodshed to a minimum now, shall we?"

The three walked into the cockpit, to find a nun praying to a nearby shrine. Booker said, quietly, "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. Just sit down, and everything will be okay."

The nun (or whatever female adherents to Comstock's cult of personality were called) didn't do anything of the sort, merely continuing to pray. As Booker ran over to the controls, the Doctor frowned, sniffing. "Oh dear," he murmured.

Suddenly, his attention was drawn to the cockpit window, as was Bernice's. Comstock was rising into view on a barge, a microphone in hand. " _The Lord forgives everything_ ," he said. " _But I'm just a prophet, so I don't have to._ "

Benny's eyes caught movement from the woman, who was raising a candle above her head…ready to drop. And only now did she realise that she could smell some sort of oil, the woman seemed to be doused in it. A torch all but ready to go up in flames.

" _Amen_ ," Comstock said.

"Amen," the woman echoed, but before she could drop the candle, Benny grabbed her hand, squeezing it shut. The woman struggled and squirmed, and Benny, while she was no slouch in physical combat, was fighting against the fires of fanaticism.

"Die, sinner! Be cleansed with heat!" the woman screamed, even as she smashed Benny away…and dropped the candle.

 ***CUE** ** _DOCTOR WHO_** **TITLE MUSIC***

 **CREDITS:**

THE DOCTOR

Sylvester McCoy

BERNICE SUMMERFIELD

Lisa Bowerman

IRVING BRAXIATEL

Miles Richardson

BOOKER DEWITT

Troy Baker

ROBERT LUTECE

Eric Vaquez

ROSALIND LUTECE

Jennifer Hale

JEREMIAH FINK

Bill Lobley

ELIZABETH

Courtnee Draper

ZACHARY HALE COMSTOCK

Kiff VandenHeuvel

 **CHAPTER 5 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **The end of episode cliffhanger! A real doozy. The cast listing at the end was a little notion of mine, as if it was either a TV episode, or a Big Finish story. Lisa Bowerman and Miles Richardson did play those respective roles in the Big Finish stories. I'm all but seeing the credits over the Sylvester McCoy ending titles, with the Keff McCulloch version of the theme.**

 **Anyway, this may be the last update for a few days at least, if not somewhat longer. It was a marathon doing this first episode. I'm surprised at how quickly I churned it out. And I'm a little burned out.**

 **That being said, doing this fanfic and playing more of** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **has given me an idea for another crossover, between** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **and another work. I won't say anything more for the moment, as it's currently in early stages.**

 **1\. I feel sorry for what I put Benny through in this chapter, but this is probably what Comstock would do, in my opinion. He'd basically sneer at her for having a half-human kid. However, the father of her child is basically a humanoid dog, a Killoran called Adrian Wall. The events leading to the conception were rather traumatic (from what I've gathered, there was mind control being used on both parties), but Wall is a decent person normally.**

 **2\. Phrenology is basically one of the more infamous pseudosciences of Victorian times. The notion is that bumps and ridges on the skull correspond to personality traits. While the brain does influence this, it had little to do with the shape of the skull. Nonetheless, this was a fashionable 'science', even though it is utter BS.**

 **3\. Mulatto is an archaic term meaning someone who is half-black, and half-white. Obviously, this isn't a term one would use nowadays, unless one wants to get injured.**

 **4\. Comstock lists at least three instances where the Doctor committed genocide (which occur in** ** _Remembrance of the Daleks, The Horns of Nimon_** **, and** ** _Trial of a Timelord: Terror of the Vervoids_** **), as well as companions who have died either while travelling with the Doctor, or else sacrificing themselves in some way. Peri is a debatable case, but I included her here for various reasons. Evelyn Smythe is a character from the Big Finish audios** **, as is Oliver Harper** **. Roz appears in the New Adventures novels.**

 **5\. Bernice's father was said to have run away during a Dalek attack on the battlefleet he was part of. The truth turned out to be different, as Benny learned in the novel** ** _Return of the Living Dad_** **.**


	7. Chapter 6: Monument Island

**EPISODE 2:**

 **SCIENCE AND THE LAMB**

 **CHAPTER 6:**

 **MONUMENT ISLAND**

 _The nun (or whatever female adherents to Comstock's cult of personality were called) didn't do anything of the sort, merely continuing to pray. As Booker ran over to the controls, the Doctor frowned, sniffing. "Oh dear," he murmured._

 _Suddenly, his attention was drawn to the cockpit window, as was Bernice's. Comstock was rising into view on a barge, a microphone in hand. "_ The Lord forgives everything _," he said. "_ But I'm just a prophet, so I don't have to. _"_

 _Benny's eyes caught movement from the woman, who was raising a candle above her head…ready to drop. And only now did she realise that she could smell some sort of oil, the woman seemed to be doused in it. A torch all but ready to go up in flames._

 _"_ Amen _," Comstock said._

 _"Amen," the woman echoed, but before she could drop the candle, Benny grabbed her hand, squeezing it shut. The woman struggled and squirmed, and Benny, while she was no slouch in physical combat, was fighting against the fires of fanaticism._

 _"Die, sinner! Be cleansed with heat!" the woman screamed, even as she smashed Benny away…and dropped the candle_.

The Doctor was many things, and while many physical activities other than running eluded him, he had, particularly in this incarnation, the skills of a circus performer(1). While he wasn't agile enough to jump into the air and somersault, he could tumble. And he was excellent at prestidigitation, though he'd had that in many of his incarnations: he remembered the distinctly unimpressed look on Henry Gordon Jago's face as his fourth incarnation did tricks(2).

Another thing he was good at was juggling, throwing things into the air and catching them. So when he saw the candle about to be dropped, despite Benny's efforts, he darted forward, and managed to catch it.

"NO!" the nun screamed. She tried to hurl herself on the candles behind her, but Benny held the woman away, and Booker came up to the nun and punched her.

As the woman slumped, unconscious, Booker murmured, almost wryly, "Another sin to add to the litany. Then again, I'm drowning in blood. What's punching out a nun compared to that?"

"Shades of a suicide bomber," Benny remarked, as they pulled the unconscious woman away.

"Suicide bomber?" Booker asked. "Do I really want to know?"

"It's after your time, as far as I know," Benny said. "But then again, people have used fanatics for suicidal attacks for a long time."

"Like the original Assassins(3)," the Doctor murmured, looking down at the prone nun with pity. "They thought they'd enter paradise too." His face twisted into an angry scowl. "Comstock," he snarled quietly. He then went over to the control panel, and nodded, while tinkering with it. "There. That should do it."

"What did you do?" Booker asked.

"Made sure we could get to Monument Island. The gunship is on autopilot," the Doctor said cheerfully. He peered out the window. "I'm sure that by this point, Comstock is wondering what had happened. But like many a villain, he left before the execution goes through."

"Okay, but what about your cabinet thing? Why couldn't we have used that to get to Monument Island? Isn't it your time machine?"

The Doctor nodded. "But the Luteces gave me coordinates. When I left the Raffle, it took me some minutes to get back to the TARDIS. It was a bit difficult, but not impossible to travel back those few minutes. I spent that time while I was trying to get the TARDIS to the right point setting up instructions for those two people, as well as persuading the TARDIS to supply the special effects, like the light and smoke."

"So those two are alive?"

"I will not be party to an execution for someone wanting to marry someone from a different race," the Doctor said, darkly. "As long as the person is of age, sentient, and willing, it shouldn't matter. In any case, I sent the TARDIS to automatically dematerialise to the relevant coordinates, as well as setting the HADS."

"HADS?"

"Hostile Action Displacement System," the Doctor explained. "If there is imminent danger of attack, the TARDIS dematerialises and rematerializes nearby(4). I connected the HADS to send it to the coordinates. Which, if I'm correct, is roughly at Monument Island, before long. The way the Luteces told me, it seems like it will be our escape route when things go bad retrieving Elizabeth." He smiled. "I knew an Elizabeth once. Dr Elizabeth Shaw, my assistant at UNIT(5)."

"Doctor, can we save the trip down memory lane for later?" Benny asked. "What about Anna DeWitt?"

"How do you…?" Booker asked.

"The brand on your hand. Comstock mentioned Anna. It was a bit of a leap," the Doctor admitted, "but I'd sooner put money on it standing for 'Anna DeWitt' than 'Anno Domini'."

Booker looked at them both, before he said, "My daughter."

"What happened to her?" the Doctor asked.

"I…I don't know…" Booker muttered.

Benny frowned. "A pretty important thing to forget, especially as it's her initials branded on your hand."

"Must be the effects of trans-dimensional crossing," the Doctor murmured. "Booker doesn't belong in this timeline any more than we do. But why would the Luteces bring someone from another timeline over into this one…unless…"

The Doctor turned to contemplate the statue they were approaching. The Luteces could have asked the Booker from this timeline to do this, so there were two alternatives he could think of offhand. Either Booker was dead, or didn't exist in this timeline, or…

He blinked. Comstock's rant was very personal, true, but the way he spoke to Booker…it was more than seeing details of the future through technology masquerading as prophecy. It was as if he knew what Booker's life was really like.

Perhaps because he may very well have lived it.

He closed his eyes, mentally comparing Booker and Comstock in his mind. Yes, the resemblance was there. Of course, it could be a familial resemblance rather than what the Doctor was thinking, but his instincts were telling him a chilling, horrifying truth.

Booker DeWitt and Comstock were the same person, albeit from different timelines.

"Booker, what year was it when you left your office?" the Doctor asked.

"1912. Why?"

"I just need a fact for a disturbing theory," the Doctor said.

"But it's 1912 here," Benny said.

"Yes, it is…" the Doctor said. The Doctor wondered, did Comstock become who he was through extended periods of time travel? It'd explain the age difference. But just as the Doctor, while he looked to be middle-aged, was actually centuries old, the reverse could be true. Comstock may look old, but he may be as old as Booker. After all, the Luteces were living examples of people from parallel universes who were very different.

He needed more information.

* * *

They arrived at Monument Island with little incident, though the Doctor and Benny carefully tied up the nun. The Doctor found a means to send the airship back to base, albeit on a timer, so they left the airship, and let it fly away.

"What do you think will happen to the nun?" Benny asked.

"I don't know. Comstock obviously doesn't value the lives of his followers, but where else can I send her? If I brought her with us, she'd try her best to stop us," the Doctor said, sadly.

"You did the right thing, Doc," Booker said quietly.

"Did I?" the Doctor asked, as he went through the doors.

They found themselves in a park-like area, with the statue looming only a short distance away. The Doctor was disturbed to see warning signs all over the place. He then looked up at the statue.

 _The girl has abilities that Comstock intends to exploit_ , Robert Lutece had said. And if these warning signs had any validity to them, they were dangerous abilities. Of course, that went without saying: tinkering in time travel, as well as cross-dimensional travel, was always dangerous.

So what abilities did the girl have, specifically?

* * *

Venturing into the Monument Island complex began to paint a very disturbing picture indeed. Quarantines were required for those passing through, though the Doctor believed it was not due to any disease, but rather, potential side effects of being close to such dimensional instability.

There were various things that disquietened the Doctor and his companions. The first was a growth chart, labelling Elizabeth a 'specimen'. They also found a Voxophone record that added to the Doctor's theories about Comstock. The man was dying of some sort of cancer, and he would be willing to bet that it was due to exposure to whatever was happening here.

And then, there were experiments on various items of Elizabeth's. A teddy bear, a poetry book, and much to their mutual disgust, a sample of blood from her menarche, or first period. It was the fact that something so personal was on display dispassionately as a specimen that disgusted the three infiltrators. But worse was to come beyond.

They then found, not far beyond, a dark room for developing photography. And amongst those hanging up was of a girl dressing herself. Benny wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Voyeurs," she snarled quietly. "Were they just performing scientific experiments, or were those sick animals getting off on watching her?"

The Doctor offered no reply. It did seem, at best, gratuitous for so-called scientists to photograph a teenaged girl half-naked like that. There was doing things for clinical record, and then, there was voyeurism.

Next door, there was a projector, showing highlights from the girl's life, where she tried lockpicking, painting, singing and dancing, as well as studying cryptography. "So she's obviously intelligent," the Doctor mused. "And as cultured as she can be, growing up isolated from anyone else. But there are three questions that must be answered."

"One, is she being guarded by someone, or something?" Benny asked.

"Very astute, Benny. Two, what exactly are her powers? And three…" The Doctor pursed his lips. "Will she be happy to see us?"

* * *

They went through more rooms, including ones that had biological specimens of various kinds. The Doctor took a bottle of blood with him, though he refused to tell the others why. And then, they found the Siphon. The Siphon was a vast array of electrical apparatus, sparking and glowing. Hazards signs littered the place, and an eerie music seemed to waft around the area. The Doctor, following the instructions the Luteces gave him, shut down specific parts of it. "What will that do?" Booker asked.

"Elizabeth, according to the Luteces, has abilities Comstock wants to control. I have just undone the leash."

"Is that wise?" Benny asked.

"Probably not, but for inveterate meddlers, the Luteces do seem to know what they're doing," the Doctor said cheerfully.

"Sounds like you've got rivals in them," Benny said with a cheerful smirk.

The Doctor laughed ruefully. He then looked at the Siphon as it began to shut down. He then plucked out a component, apparently a combination of crystals and circuitry. "They also told me to take this component out." He frowned, peering at it. "This is a crude artron energy transformer."

"Artron energy…that's the stuff the TARDIS runs on," Benny said.

"Amongst other things. Artron energy is present throughout the universe, but is particularly abundant in three places: a living, sentient mind, the Time Vortex, and the bodies of time travellers(6). The transformer was designed to basically reduce the potency of the artron energy running through it. It's rather beautiful for crude and dangerous technology. Booker?"

"Yes?"

"Would you kindly step on this thing for me(7)?" the Doctor said, placing the device on the ground.

Booker nodded, and then stamped on the component viciously, grinding it into powder. "Will that stop Comstock?"

"Maybe not, but it will slow him down immensely."

* * *

An elevator took them up to a series of rooms for observing Elizabeth through one-way mirrors.

One of the rooms, they saw Elizabeth for the first time. The dark-haired girl was showing off a card with a picture of Paris on it to the mirror. The Doctor wondered whether she knew on any level that she had an audience behind those mirrors. It was then that he noticed that she wore a thimble on the little finger of her right hand. She soon left.

They moved into another observation area, where Elizabeth was working on a painting of the Eiffel Tower. The Doctor realised that something was very wrong. His senses had been tingling ever since entering the tower, but now, it seemed to be centred on the painting.

He finally got a key piece of information when Elizabeth seemed to grasp at the painting, and then, with a gesture, opened up the very air itself, the border a brilliant white. And beyond the rent she created was a darkened cityscape, but the Eiffel Tower loomed in the distance. And the Doctor saw a cinema, with the top billing being _La Revanche du Jedi_.

"Doctor, that cinema…" Benny hissed.

"Yes…"

"What do you mean, the cinema?" Booker demanded in a low whisper. "The girl just ripped a hole in the air!"

"Through space and time…" the Doctor murmured, only to blanch when he saw an ambulance coming right for the rent. The girl noticed too, and she struggled to close up the hole, managing it just in time before the ambulance, lights flashing and siren wailing, nearly hit them.

As the girl, clearly shaken, stumbled away, Benny said, "Doctor, that cinema billboard…"

"I know."

"What are you two talking about?" Booker demanded.

" _La Revanche du Jedi_. In English, _Revenge of the Jedi_ ," the Doctor said.

Benny nodded. "In our timeline, _Revenge of the Jedi_ was the original title of a film released in 1983. But the creator changed it to another title, _Return of the Jedi_ , shortly before release."

"It has nothing to do with the job at hand," Booker said.

"On the contrary, it has _everything_ to do with it," the Doctor said. "Somehow, Elizabeth has the innate ability to open rents in time and space. It is her power that Comstock exploits to his own ends, or at least in tandem with the Luteces' technology."

"So, who is her father?" Booker said. "The Luteces said that I was to bring her back to her father. What does her father want with her now? Does he want to exploit her like Comstock?"

The Doctor frowned at Booker's question, which seemed to make a connection within his thoughts. Benny didn't fail to notice the Doctor's eyes flickering briefly to Booker's brand. "Maybe he wants to make amends."

The Doctor was beginning to feel that there was more to this. Why bring Booker in from another timeline? Why go to all that trouble? The Luteces could have picked any number of competent and qualified agents to do their bidding. Why go to all the trouble of bringing Booker in from another reality?

Unless Booker was connected to this somehow. And not just as an alternate version of Comstock, assuming that the Doctor's theory was correct. There was another connection here as well.

Booker had forgotten the fate of his daughter, despite branding her initials into his hand. Could it be that she was the very girl they were set to rescue?

 **CHAPTER 6 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **The Doctor is suspecting the true relationship between Booker and Elizabeth. He only suspects, as he has little evidence, and less than his suspicion that Booker and Comstock are the same, but he suspects all the same.**

 **I decided to spare the nun rather than have her fate run its course like in the game because I wanted the Doctor and Benny to actually have an impact on events.**

 **1\. This is not something I made up. In fact, the Doctor shows off said skills during** ** _Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy_** **. Sylvester McCoy knows many circus performer tricks, and long before he became the Seventh Doctor, was a performer on the Ken Campbell Roadshow, doing things that** ** _Jackass_** **would have done nowadays.**

 **2\. Henry Gordon Jago was a theatre owner and MC in** ** _The Talons of Weng-Chiang_** **(which is, despite some dubious treatment of the Chinese, is one of the best stories in the entire series). Since 2009, Jago, and another character from the same story, professor Litefoot, appeared in the Big Finish audios, starting with a pilot episode in the** ** _Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles_** **series, and then getting their own spinoff series,** ** _Jago & Litefoot_** **.**

 **3\. The original Assassins were used as the basis for the organisation in** ** _Assassin's Creed_** **. A fanatical group, they were indoctrinated to murder their targets publicly, but allowing themselves to be killed in the process. The Assassins are actually mentioned in** ** _Doctor Who_** **at least once: in the sadly missing story** ** _Marco Polo_** **, Ping Cho recites a version of their story.**

 **4\. The HADS first made its appearance in** ** _The Krotons_** **, and made a reappearance as recently as the new series story** ** _Cold War_** **.**

 **5\. Liz was the first companion of the Third Doctor. Fittingly for this fanfic, her last televised story,** ** _Inferno_** **, involved the Doctor's first televised journey into a parallel universe. In the New Adventures novel** ** _Eternity Weeps_** **, set in 2005, Liz dies from an alien virus. As she is mentioned as being alive in the new series, I am ignoring that novel.**

 **6\. Artron energy is first mentioned, I believe, in** ** _The Deadly Assassin_** **, where the Doctor's mind is struggling in the Matrix (long before the Wachowskis did their film), one of those supervising him remarks that he has a lot of artron energy. In** ** _Four to Doomsday_** **, the Doctor confirms it to be a power source of the TARDIS.**

 **7\. I couldn't resist a reference to the original** ** _BioShock_** **.**


	8. Chapter 7: The Bird Smashing the Cage

**CHAPTER 7:**

 **THE BIRD SMASHING THE CAGE**

The girl was in the library, which they had to access via a catwalk along the outside of the statue. Benny didn't fancy a drop like that at all. Understandably. Hit the ground, or at least the ground on Monument Island even at this height, and they'd only need a mop and bucket for your remains. Drop all the way to the surface, though…

"How high up is this city, anyway?" Benny asked.

"Over 15 thousand feet," Booker said. "I dunno exactly how many, but the rocket had some voice coming from some speaker or other, and I heard it say 15,000 feet."

"Four and a half kilometres, roughly," Benny said, doing the mental math. She frowned. "Shouldn't we be getting altitude sickness at this height?"

"You and I, Benny, are used to thinner atmospheres on other worlds," the Doctor said. "In any case, it may be that the city has a weak atmospheric field that keeps it dense enough to prevent altitude sickness in any newcomers. Or maybe Booker is able to cope more with a thinner atmosphere."

"Hell if I know, Doc," Booker said. "Listen…that cabinet of yours…can it fit four people in it?"

"Six people, as the couple we rescued are still inside. And yes. Normally, I would wait until people enter it before they find out, but for you, I will spoil the surprise. It is bigger on the inside than the outside."

"…Of course it is," Booker muttered. "Holes in space and time, time travel, rockets, flying cities, a nutjob priest who can see the future, a pair of scientists who are actually weird ghosts, a woman who claims to be from six centuries from now, and an alien who looks like a man. I mean, compared to that, what the hell is a time-travelling cabinet that's bigger on the inside than the outside? Can it take us to New York?"

"To any world in the cosmos, and to any point in that world's existence. Sometimes, my accuracy has left something to be desired, but I promise you, I can bring the girl to where she needs to go."

Benny didn't fail to notice the Doctor's wording, and judging by the faintest narrowing of his eyes, neither did Booker. The Doctor then said, "If the money is what you're worried about, Booker, I have more than enough gold in the TARDIS to mean that your monetary debt can be erased."

"The Luteces said to take her back to New York," Booker said.

"True. But what did they say, exactly?"

"Bring us the girl. Wipe away the debt. That's what I was told when I first accepted this job. I can't remember whether it was the Luteces or not, but that's what I remember I was told."

The Doctor nodded, even as they got into an airlock leading into the library area. "I believe that the Luteces were talking about more than a fiscal debt. I think your past is catching up with you, Mr DeWitt. They said to bring the girl back to her father. Let's go and do that, shall we?"

They went into the statue once more, and found themselves near a cage lift. The three of them stepped onto it, only to have the long-disused device break. The Doctor and Benny fell almost instantly to the floor, while Booker clung to a railing, coming face to face with an understandably surprised Elizabeth.

"Uhhh…hello," Booker said, before he slipped and fell, Elizabeth screaming in fright.

She scurried down the stairs, throwing books at the intruders. The Doctor unfurled his umbrella (not giving a damn that it was bad luck) to shield Benny and Booker from the onslaught.

"It's okay!" the Doctor said. "We're not here to harm you! And those are some very nice books you're damaging by throwing at us!" He peered at the title of one of them. " _The Principles of Quantum Mechanics_ by Rosalind Lutece," he noted. "Advanced reading for someone your age."

Elizabeth seemed caught between scowling in annoyance, and amazed at the trio of people present. Eventually, she asked, "Who are you?"

The Doctor doffed his hat. "I am the Doctor. This lovely lady is Professor Bernice Summerfield. And this gentleman is Booker DeWitt. We've come to get you out of here."

Elizabeth blinked, before stepping forward, reaching out and touching the Doctor's face. Then, Benny's, and then Booker's. "…You are real?" she asked.

"I'm real enough," Booker said. But before he could say anything more, a musical set of whistling sounds emanated from a nearby statue of Comstock.

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "He's coming. You've got to go, all of you."

"Who's coming?" Booker demanded.

"Her guard," the Doctor said.

"Yes, and you don't want to be here when he gets here," Elizabeth said. She then yelled at the hole where the lift used to be. "Just a moment, I'm getting dressed!"

"We can get you out of here," Booker said.

"There's no way out, believe me, I've tried."

The Doctor went over to an elaborate locked door, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, only for Booker to clear his throat pointedly. "I was given this," he said, showing off a key, with pictures of a bird and a cage engraved on it.

Elizabeth snatched it, and opened the door. "So it is a way out," she murmured. She then turned to the others. Before she could say anything, however, a strange, high-pitched call rang out. "He's coming."

"Your guard?" Benny asked as the four of them began running out of the library. "Doctor, do you think it's like that Handyman thing we saw earlier?"

"No. Indubitably something much worse," the Doctor said as they ran along shaking catwalks. "Even so, it's something very large, very strong, and very angry!"

Suddenly, slashes appeared in the metal walls near the catwalk they were running along. "Run!" the Doctor yelled, albeit unnecessarily.

They made it back to the elevator, and Benny slammed her fist on the button. Elizabeth, meanwhile, had seen the observation windows nearby. "What is all this? They were watching me?" She turned to the three intruders, and said, "Why? Why did they put me in here? What am I? What am I?!"

Booker stepped forward, even as the elevator arrived. "You're the girl who's getting out of here."

Suddenly, the elevator was smashed away by a massive head. The Doctor stared. The creature, what little he could see of it, was vaguely avian, with a large red eye peering at them. It was definitely robotic, or perhaps even cybernetic. The skin of the beast seemed to be leather, though the head was definitely metal.

Thinking quickly, he said, "Stand back!" before pulling out a mirror on a chain. It was a long shot, but it might just work. Spinning it near the eyes, he began singing.

" _Klokeda partha menin klatch,_

 _Haroon, haroon, haroon,_

 _Klokeda sheenah tierra natch,_

 _Haroon, haroon, haroon._

 _Haroon, haroon, haroon,_

 _Haroon, haroon, haroon._

 _Haroon, haroon, haroon,_

 _Haroon, haroon, haroon(_ _1)_ _._ "

"What is he doing?" Booker hissed at Benny.

"I think that's a Venusian lullaby," Benny muttered. "I think he's used that to tame savage beasts before."

"It seems to be working," Elizabeth whispered. "But isn't that _God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen_? I have it in a book of Christmas carols."

"You'd be surprised at the level of coincidence in the universe," Benny replied.

Booker, while glad that the Doctor was managing to quieten the beast, kept his gun ready. He wasn't going to shoot until this creature made a move again, though. Instead, he asked Elizabeth, "This thing was your guard?"

"Yes. His name is Songbird."

"Songbird, huh?" Benny remarked. "It's a remarkable piece of technology. It might even be a cyborg. Part-flesh, part-machine, like the Handyman we saw at the fair."

Suddenly, Songbird began to thrash, and they heard a high-pitched, androgynous, even vaguely child-like voice scream, " _No! Not code! Not code! Intruders! Stay away from her!_ "

Benny yelped, "What was that?"

The Doctor leapt back from the agitated Songbird. "The TARDIS' translation circuits have kicked in. Songbird! We're bringing the girl back to her father!"

" _No! Interlopers! Destroy!_ "

"Songbird! It's me!" Elizabeth yelled. "Stop doing this!"

" _No! Mine! You're mine! Go back to room!_ "

"Shut up," Booker said, raising his gun and firing at Songbird. With a cry of rage and pain, the creature fell out of sight, taking the terminally damaged elevator with it.

"How come I could hear Songbird speaking English?" Elizabeth asked. "I mean, I could understand him before, but I've never heard him speak English."

"Long story," Benny said. "But we've got to get out of here."

Elizabeth nodded. "He's tearing this place apart."

The quartet leapt across the elevator shaft to a staircase, where they began running up the stairs. "Be careful, Elizabeth!" Booker said as he escorted the girl.

"How do you know my name?" she asked.

"A very long story, and one we will gladly tell you once we're out of danger!" Benny said.

They soon found themselves at a door that led outside the statue. They ran up, even as the monstrous form of Songbird soared through the air. The Doctor managed to get a good look at the creature as it sped by. It was massive and bulky, and yet, still managed to fly, possibly through the same technology that the Luteces had developed for Columbia. It had arms and legs like a man, two massive, leathery wings, and a head that was vaguely avian, though it also looked like a respirator of some kind. " _No! Mine!_ " it screamed.

"He's very possessive, isn't he?" the Doctor said.

"Like a jealous boyfriend(2), only he can fly!" Benny panted as they ran up the ramp. Only for the creature to slam into part of the statue, and send the quartet flying.

As they fell, Benny and Booker grabbed a hold of Elizabeth, while the Doctor grabbed onto Benny's hand. And just when Benny thought that they were in very deep shit…

…A most wonderful sound reached their ears.

Fading into existence, falling with them, was the TARDIS. The Doctor reached around with his free hand, pulled out the key, and opened the door. He clambered inside, pulling Benny, Booker, and Elizabeth inside.

* * *

Elizabeth stared at the interior of the cabinet that they had just entered. It was certainly much roomier on the inside…in much the same way that Songbird was a little possessive.

It was a vast, cathedral-like interior, panelled in dark wood and with bookshelves and drawers lining the walls. The middle of the room was dominated by a gigantic apparatus, control panels surrounding a glass column, within which blue crystals were evident(3).

A young white man and a young black woman were near the apparatus, staring at the newcomers. "What's going on?" the man asked.

"No time to explain!" the Doctor yelled, running to the console. He wrenched down a lever, causing the massive doors behind them to close. He then scampered around the console, flipping levers and pressing buttons. With the same unearthly roar that had heralded the cabinet's appearance, the blue crystals within the glass column began to mesh and unmesh.

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. "Right. We're away from Columbia." He then turned to the couple. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Doctor, that young woman is my old friend Professor Bernice Summerfield, that man with the gun is Booker DeWitt, and the girl is Elizabeth, sometimes known as the Lamb of Columbia."

Elizabeth was astonished and disturbed by the looks of surprise and awe on the mixed-race couple's faces. "So she's real?" the black woman asked.

"Indeed. And you are?" the Doctor asked.

"Melissa Sedgewick," the woman said. "Everyone calls me Missy."

"And I'm Eric Nation," the man said. "Doctor…thanks for saving us."

"Saving you? What did he save you from?" Elizabeth asked.

"From being killed merely for being married," Eric said, quietly and bitterly.

"I don't understand," Elizabeth said.

"Look, Elizabeth," Bernice said. "The people of Columbia reckon that different races shouldn't marry or have children."

Elizabeth scowled. "But why?"

"Xenophobia. Fear and hatred of difference," the Doctor said. "Doubtless Comstock was going to indoctrinate you with his views once he believed that you were ready."

"That's sick," Bernice muttered.

"That's not a problem anymore," Booker said. "Doc, can you take this thing to New York?"

"If I needed to, yes. But I need to run some tests," the Doctor said. "Booker, would you mind coming with me? Transdimensional travel seems to have had a bad effect on you."

Booker scowled, but allowed the Doctor to lead him away. Bernice then turned to the others. "I dunno about you, but I don't want to be dressed like this a moment longer, and I'm sure you two don't want to be dressed like that either." She meant the leather jacket and rough trousers (and nothing more) that Eric was wearing, and the rough, sackcloth dress Missy was wearing.

"But where can we get clothing?" Missy asked. "Does this place have a wardrobe?"

"In the same way that Comstock has a bit of an ego, yes," Bernice smiled. "Actually, I reckon you'll be spoiled for choice…"

* * *

Booker wasn't a truly patient man. Although he wasn't actually an impatient man by any means, he also didn't like the evasive attitude of the Doctor, as he led the former Pinkerton through the various corridors of his time machine.

A small part of him was gazing around in child-like wonder. The vast corridors of the TARDIS astonished that part of him. The interior had to be the size of a city, as far as he could tell. But the rest of him was wondering whether he should try hijacking the craft. He needed to get the girl back to New York.

"It won't work," the Doctor said quietly. "I know what you're thinking, Mr DeWitt. And no, I can't read minds, most of the time. I know you're thinking of forcing us to New York. But you can't use weapons in here. The Luteces reminded me to check the temporal grace circuits. They're in good repair. No gun, no psi-powers, and no Sky-Hook. Besides, you're not that sort of man."

"How do you know?" Booker said, scowling that his intentions had been read so easily.

"Because I like to think that I am a good reader of people. You are more than a little mercenary, and you are brutally pragmatic when it comes to taking lives…" Booker could hear the disgust dripping from the Doctor's voice. "…But when I saw how you reacted to Fink's idea of entertainment…I think you are a good man, Booker, or at least you're trying to be. Which is different to Comstock. He believes that he has licence to do what he wants without any need for repentance, because he is a virtuous man, now and forever."

"And what of you, Doc?" Booker asked as they finally entered a medical bay. "What Comstock said about me was real, but what about those things he mentioned? Skaro, Crinoth, the Vervoids…he said you committed genocide."

"He isn't far off the mark," the Doctor said, as he took the bottle of Elizabeth's blood he had taken from Monument Island, and put drips of it into a machine. "But all three cases…they were genocidal beings themselves. Crinoth was one of the settlements of the Nimon, a parasitic race that fed off the energy of living beings like locusts off crops. The Vervoids were genetically engineered plants who decided that all animals that predated on them should be killed. And the Daleks…xenophobic fanatics who will destroy or enslave any other being that isn't a Dalek. Not unlike Comstock's own values in many regards. I'm not proud of my actions there, and save for the Vervoids, not all the members of the species were wiped out."

"And the names? Sara Kingdom, Adric…"

"Companions who died while travelling with me, or helping me," the Doctor said sadly. "I try not to make a habit of letting them die, but…it has happened." He took out a cotton bud on a stick. "Excuse me, could you open your mouth?"

"Why?"

"Indulge me."

Booker frowned, before reluctantly allowing the man who swab the inside of his mouth. As the Doctor busied himself with his apparatus, Booker, despite his annoyance, was also curious. "What are you doing with that?"

"Being a former Pinkerton, you are familiar with fingerprints, aren't you?" the Doctor asked.

Booker nodded. "What does that have to do with my spit?"

"There is a type of fingerprint that exists within the cells of your body. DNA is a kind of complex chemical that determines, to many degrees, your skin, eye and hair colour, height, certain diseases, etcetera. This DNA fingerprint is unique to you. Only identical twins would have the same DNA. However, parents contribute half of their genetic material to their offspring. In other words, have samples from a parent and a child, and you can tell whether they are related. Hence the cells I swabbed from your cheek."

"I don't understand what you're getting at, Doctor. I thought you were here to fix whatever the Luteces did to me."

"This is part of the process. Because if my theory is correct, your job is over." The device the Doctor had been working on beeped, and he looked at a screen that displayed letters and numbers. "And it seems that my theory _is_ correct."

"What do you mean?" Booker demanded. "Gimme a straight answer, dammit!"

"I'm about to. You don't need to deliver Elizabeth to her father, because you've already done so. _You_ , Booker DeWitt, are her father. Elizabeth is none other than Anna. Elizabeth is your daughter."

 **CHAPTER 7 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **And there we have it. Not only is Elizabeth freed in a much different manner than in canon, but Booker has found out that Elizabeth is his daughter. And with that, I have all but derailed the storyline of** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **.**

 **But don't think for one moment that because they're on the TARDIS, the story is over. In fact, it's just beginning…**

 **BTW, given how the interracial couple is never given a name in the game (indeed, 'Interracial Couple' is the name of their page on the BioShock Wiki), I decided to make up some names. However, they are not accidental. I derived them from the rather archaic (and sometimes offensive) term for interracial marriage and breeding, miscegenation (hence Missy Sedgewick and Eric Nation). But my intention is not to offend. I find them rather sweet when you meet them later in the game, and I frankly wanted to get them away from the hellhole that is Columbia. Hence them being in the TARDIS.**

 **1\. Although the first line of this lullaby made its debut in** ** _Doctor Who: The Daemons_** **(the Doctor shouted it at an animated gargoyle, pretending it was a magical spell: long story there), its first use as a means of calming down a gigantic guardian beast was in** ** _The Curse of Peladon_** **, where the Third Doctor uses it, plus hypnosis, to tame Aggedor. As Elizabeth points out, the tune is that of** ** _God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen_** **. I deliberately left out references to the New Adventures novel** ** _Legacy_** **, where Aggedor and his species are long-extinct, as I prefer the Big Finish continuity to the New Adventures, and only add stories that have been adapted by BF, or else are relevant.**

 **2\. Which was how the character of Songbird was conceived. As basically a jealous boyfriend.**

 **3\. I decided to have the massive control room as seen in the TV Movie.**


	9. Chapter 8: Cataclysmic Conniption

**CHAPTER 8:**

 **CATACLYSMIC CONNIPTION**

Booker _remembered_.

 _Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt_.

That simple bit of information, about Elizabeth being his daughter, was like opening a floodgate.

It was nearly twenty years ago. Robert Lutece had been the one to come to him. His wife had died in childbirth. His gambling debts were piling up. His creditors were threatening him. And in a fit of inebriated desperation, he sold his own daughter. Lutece then had the gall to tell him that Comstock had washed away his sins.

Comstock…a name he hadn't heard for a long time. It was the name he very nearly chose when he was very nearly baptised by that half-blind priest, after the events of Wounded Knee.

Now, damnable, damnable recollection was rushing through his brain. He remembered that he had tracked Lutece down in a fit of remorse, to find Anna in the arms of Comstock. Younger. Still with that beard…but certainly more recognisable.

Comstock and the Luteces had fled through a rip in space and time, with Anna's finger caught in the rip. He blinked as he remembered the thimble covering Elizabeth's own little finger.

 _I see every sin that blackens your soul. Wounded Knee, the Pinkertons, the drinking and the gambling…and of course, Anna._

That's what Comstock had said. At the time, he had dismissed it as being part of the man's psychological warfare, his attempt to undermine Booker. Even after learning that the man could see into time, he just thought that the man was a clever voyeur to make use of what he had seen.

But there was another reason Comstock knew Booker's sins so intimately.

Booker looked into a mirror in the medical bay, only to see it bearded, and aged.

He was Comstock. He didn't know how or why, but Comstock and he was the same person.

With a scream of fury, he smashed the mirror. He felt a hand on his arm, and whirled to attack the owner…only to find the Doctor looking at him, with those sad eyes of his.

"He's _me_ …" Booker said. " _That bastard is me_."

"I suspected that for some time," the Doctor said quietly.

* * *

It was with the air of a confession that Booker spoke to the Doctor about what he had done. The sins he had committed against Elizabeth. Against his daughter, Anna. About how he might very well have become like Comstock.

The Doctor listened. He offered neither consolation or condemnation at the time. He just listened. And that was perhaps better than anything else. He did bandage up Booker's hand, wounded by his smashing the mirror.

After Booker finished listing his litany, the Doctor was silent for a time, before saying, "You're not the only one to have seen another version of himself…and one who is truly evil."

"What do you mean?"

The Doctor looked into Booker's eyes. "I may not look it, Booker, but I am over 900 years old. Our people have the ability to hold back death. When we're mortally wounded, our bodies change within seconds. Regeneration, we call it. We can do this twelve times: thirteen bodies in all. This is my seventh body. In my previous incarnation, I learned that, one day, an amalgamation of my darkest traits will be formed during my final regeneration. This being, the Valeyard, has tried to take my lives to become a full being once more on a number of occasions(1)."

"And with over nine centuries of life, I guess you have a lot of sins to worry about," Booker said quietly.

The Doctor nodded. "Deaths…betrayals…I like to think that most of the time, I am a good man. But even a good man does bad things. When I first met Benny, I was forced to betray one of my oldest friends and companions, Ace, in order to save the universe. I sacrificed a man she had fallen in love with…" Tears gently welled up in the Doctor's eyes. "…It took her a long time to forgive me. It'll probably be longer before I can forgive myself. I could condemn you for what you did at Wounded Knee. But I can't stop that massacre, and I would want to. It is one of the bitter truths about being a Time Lord, knowing what one can alter, and what one cannot. I could probably save one or two families, but how could I choose? Once, King Richard the Third told me that I was worse than a god, because even gods allow their subjects to repent(2). Whereas I have to make sure that history continues along the lines it does. My point is, Mr DeWitt, is that we all have a universe of our demons to confront. You may run from your sins, as I do, but at least we acknowledge them. Comstock does not. He believes that his baptism, his cleansing of sin, gives him licence to do what he wishes. But if one wants redemption, even baptism is but the first step. He merely uses his supposed redemption as a cloak to hide his true nature. Redemption must be earned, and not through a single act of contrition."

Booker was quite for a long time. Eventually, he said, "Where do we go from here? If she is my daughter, where do I take her? Back to New York? Will she even want to go back with me?"

"That, Mr DeWitt, is up to you…"

* * *

Benny was glad to be out of that damned corset. Thankfully, the TARDIS wardrobe had showers adjacent. All that running around, she had worked up quite a sweat, even though she was used to running around, whether it be desolate alien landscapes that looked like quarries, or up and down endless corridors that all looked the same.

She was now dressed in the clothes she had worn back on Dionysus 5. Missy and Eric had dressed in clothing she had seen Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester wear, funnily enough. "You guys all right?" Benny asked the two as they looked around the vast wardrobe of the TARDIS in wonder.

"It's just so…fantastic," Missy said quietly. "If only Daisy could see this…"

"Who's Daisy?"

Elizabeth's voice came from behind her. "Daisy Fitzroy, the head of the Vox Populi. I sometimes saw things through Tears, people telling stories about her. Depending on who's doing the telling, she's either the worst kind of villain, or the people's hero."

Benny turned to find that Elizabeth had changed. She had searched amongst the various costumes on the TARDIS, and had chosen a mildly unusual outfit. It seemed to be a purple blouse, with matching trousers, and a silvery vest over the blouse(3). It suited the girl really well.

"Vox Populi? Voice of the People? Let me guess, a rebel group against Comstock," Benny remarked.

"You saw how he treats people like us," Missy said quietly. "We worked for the Vox Populi, mostly in gathering information in Fink's factories. We were caught. Thankfully, they thought our only crime was to be married. Otherwise, they may have tortured us in the Good Time Club for information(4)."

"But even then, they were going to have us killed at the Raffle," Eric spat bitterly. "If it weren't for your friend, the Doctor…I thought for a moment he was going to do much worse."

Missy frowned at Elizabeth. "And you're the Lamb? You're Comstock's daughter?"

Benny winced as she saw the astonished expression come over Elizabeth's face. She remembered the Luteces mentioning that fact before, or at least that Comstock considered her to be his daughter. "I'm…what? I'm his daughter?"

"She didn't know," Benny said to the couple. "She was locked away from almost everything. Comstock obviously trying to curb any influence on her so that Elizabeth would do his bidding."

Elizabeth shook her head, scowling. "Well, he may want me to do his bidding. I want a puppy, but that doesn't mean I will get it. Professor Summerfield…"

"Just Benny will do," Benny said.

"How can a woman be a professor?" Missy asked. "Don't get me wrong, I know Rosalind Lutece was one, but even so, you don't seem like one…"

"I come from over six centuries into your future," Benny said. "They've got women as professors, people of all colours, shapes and sizes…politics and prejudice still come into it, but it's not like your time."

"You seem so normal for someone from the future," Eric said.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Benny," Elizabeth interjected, "when Booker asked whether this…place could go to New York, what did he mean? How can that blue box go anywhere?"

Benny sighed, dreading the explanation. "Because it's a time machine."

"And it's bigger on the inside than the outside," Elizabeth said, frowning. "It felt almost like one of my Tears when we entered."

"Tears? You mean that hole you ripped in space and time? We saw you opening up one to Paris. Nearly got run over by an ambulance."

"Is that what that thing was? It was moving pretty fast for a vehicle. But you said time machine…I can see different times and spaces through my Tears. I used to be able to go through into those times at will…until some years back. Does this thing move through time and space too?"

Benny nodded. "It's the Doctor's. I'm as human as you are, save for the whole 'tearing time and space a new orifice' thing. But he's an alien from another world. A whole race of time travellers, most of them a bunch of dusty old snobs. He just likes to get involved."

Elizabeth smiled. "You like him, don't you?"

"Yeah. As a friend. The age gap's a bit much, he's over 900 years old(5)."

The younger girl giggled, and the couple laughed. And then, Elizabeth sobered up a little. "But that wasn't what I meant. Can he take us to Paris? I've always wanted to go there."

Bernice frowned. "Probably. Sometimes the TARDIS is a bit unreliable when it comes to destinations. The Doctor's better at controlling it than he used to be, though."

"And what sort of name is TARDIS, anyway?"

"It's an acronym: Time And Relative Dimensions In Space(6)," Benny said. She smiled at the girl, and said, "I'm sure if you asked the Doctor nicely, he could take us to Paris. Hopefully, it's not in the middle of the Reign of Terror(7)…"

* * *

"How do I go about this, Doc?" Booker asked as they walked back to the control room. "How do I look that girl in the eye, tell her that I'm her father, and that I sold her to pay off my debts?"

"I have no easy answer, Booker. Especially as she has abilities beyond what any human should be capable of. If she were to unleash them within the TARDIS…my craft is extremely hardy to forces within and without, but even then, it may be disastrous. Especially while we're in transit through the Time Vortex."

They came into the control room, to find Benny, Elizabeth, Missy and Eric already present. The Doctor smiled when he saw the outfit Elizabeth was wearing. "Ah, Elizabeth. You know, that outfit belonged to my grand-daughter, Susan."

"Would she mind if I wore this?" Elizabeth asked.

"Not at all. She'd be glad someone is making use of it," the Doctor reassured the teenager as he went over to the console. "So…where would you like to go, hmm? All of time and space…where?"

"Paris," Elizabeth said, without hesitation.

"In what year?"

"As long as it's a good year, though Paris in 1912 may not be so bad," Elizabeth said.

"Maybe, but the Mona Lisa wasn't in the Louvre in that year. It had been stolen(8)," the Doctor mused. "Then again, any later than 1979, and it's a copy painted by Da Vinci with 'THIS IS A FAKE' written on the canvas with felt tip(9)."

Elizabeth blinked, and then said, with considerable understatement, "Doctor, sometimes, you say the oddest things."

"Believe me, Elizabeth, that's far from the strangest thing to come from his mouth," Benny said with a laugh.

The Doctor began adjusting the controls on the console. "There you go. Paris, 1910. Before the Mona Lisa was stolen."

As the TARDIS roared into life, Elizabeth noticed the way Booker was looking at her. It was a disturbing look, one that confused her. There was a vague longing to it. Eventually, she asked, "What's up with you?"

"Uhh, nothing," Booker said, looking away, an ashamed look on his face.

"It obviously wasn't nothing," Elizabeth said. "What, are you one of those sorts who expect a kiss from the fair damsel?"

Booker grunted. It sounded vaguely negative.

"Well, you're eloquent." She peered at his face. "What's the matter?"

"A lot of things," the Doctor said. "He's found out some disturbing things about himself, and he's trying to process it. He'll be fine soon."

Booker suddenly snarled, "How the hell can you say that I'll be fine soon?! I just learned that the guy in charge of Columbia is my evil twin from another universe! Not only that, but I remembered selling my daughter to that son of a bitch! A daughter who now has the ability to rip open holes in space and time like you'd rip holes in a rag! Tell me, Doc, how can you say that I'll be fine soon? I don't think I'm gonna be fine for the rest of my goddamn life! I certainly wasn't before this bullshit came along!"

And then, he realised what a mistake he had made. All those pent-up feelings hadn't gone away, and had erupted at the worst possible time. Because now Elizabeth was staring at Booker in horror. "No…no, it can't be…"

"Elizabeth…" Benny said, reaching out for her, only for the teenager to bat her hand away.

"Don't touch me!" she snarled. "I want to get off this thing!" she snapped at the Doctor.

"The TARDIS is in transit," the Doctor said. "I can't open the doors until we land."

"Then I'll make it land!" Elizabeth snarled, before writhing wreaths of energy began to rise from her body, like smoke.

"Elizabeth, stop! If you do this to the TARDIS, we might all die!"

"Shut up! You took me from my home, in the company of this man, who sold me when I was young, into Comstock's possession? Don't you dare tell me what to do!" With a scream of rage, Elizabeth unleashed the energy.

Bernice didn't have enough time to scream, before white light filled the TARDIS' control room, and the distinctive roar of the time machine began to judder and stutter. Soon, they were tumbling and falling, their screams matching that of the stricken time machine, as it plunged out of control…

 **CHAPTER 8 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **How's that for a cliffhanger?**

 **As of finishing this chapter, I have finished my playthrough of the main game of** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **. Even knowing something of the ending, I found it an excellent one.**

 **In case you're wondering why Booker and Elizabeth are being somewhat OOC, keep in mind that the former has just had a lot dumped on his plate. He's understandably upset at the revelations. As for Elizabeth, hearing that your father sold you, and that Comstock is the evil twin of your biological father, is a shock to the system. Remember how upset she was when she realised Booker wasn't taking her to Paris in the game, and how silly she was when opening Tears willy-nilly, not thinking about whether she might get caught or not.**

 **1\. The Valeyard's only televised appearance was in** ** _The Trial of a Timelord_** **, though he has made appearances in a number of audio dramas, including** ** _Trial of the Valeyard_** **, and** ** _The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure_** **.**

 **2\. A reference to the audio story** ** _The Kingmaker_** **, which I highly recommend. It's both funny and tragic. In it, Richard III is not a villain, but more of a brutal pragmatist, albeit one who saved the lives of his nephews and his brother when he was said to have killed them.**

 **3\. This is the costume Susan, the Doctor's grand-daughter, is wearing in the original pilot version of** ** _An Unearthly Child_** **. Incidentally, Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester were prior companions of the Doctor. Like Eric and Missy, they were a Caucasian man and an African woman, though they were partners in a police force rather than married. If I recall correctly, Roz actually comes from the nobility of the time (29** **th** **century, I think).**

 **4\. I wanted to have a reason why they seem to know Daisy Fitzroy, given their dialogue in the game, but why they seemed to be stoned only for being married.**

 **5\. Interestingly enough, in the novel** ** _The Dying Days_** **, Benny does, at the very least, snog the more dashing-looking Eighth Doctor. It's vaguely implied that they may even have had sex.**

 **6\. I prefer this version of the acronym: it makes more sense than 'Relative Dimension In Space', because 'relative dimensions in space' sounds like what the TARDIS travels through.**

 **7\. The last story of the first season of** ** _Doctor Who_** **was called** ** _The Reign of Terror_** **, and was set in France during the infamous revolution.**

 **8\. The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, and not returned until 1913.**

 **9\. Another reference to the events of** ** _City of Death_** **.**


	10. Chapter 9: Heart to Heart

**CHAPTER 9:**

 **HEART TO HEART**

Suddenly, the TARDIS juddered to a halt. Elizabeth leapt to her feet, and found the door controls. Opening the doors, she fled the TARDIS, the Doctor and Bernice's admonishing shouts doing little to stop her.

Benny ran after her, pausing only at the doors to make sure that she wasn't about to step out into an airless void. But no…beyond all possibility, they had landed in Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower. It couldn't have been 1912: Benny's interest in the 20th and 21st centuries was enough that she knew it was several decades later than that. And Elizabeth had just run out into the middle of traffic, barely avoiding being hit by cars as she fled. Benny, having a bit more sense, waited until she could follow. The girl was slowing down, looking around as she realised where she was.

Benny remembered that time when she first met the Doctor, in the aftermath of that whole mess with the Hoothi. She remembered Ace fleeing from the Doctor, and scorning Benny's attempt to help, sneering at her for being like a parent she never wanted. After Ace rejoined the TARDIS crew, older and perhaps more bitter, the two eventually became good friends, though they had a few rough patches at first.

Elizabeth was nothing like Ace, but there was at least one thing they had in common: when they lost their temper, heaven forfend whoever got in the way. In a way, Elizabeth was worse: Ace may have had a major explosives obsession, but Elizabeth could open holes in space and time.

The girl eventually slowed, and then, on a park bench, sagged, and sat down. Benny emitted a sigh of relief. Thank heavens that she didn't have to chase Elizabeth throughout half the damn city, especially if she started opening Tears along the way. Benny slowed her pace as well. She didn't want to spook the girl.

Elizabeth was merely staring at the Eiffel Tower. She didn't quite notice Benny until the older woman sat down next to her. Her face twisted into a scowl, and she said, sullenly, "What do you want?"

"To talk. You probably didn't do a lot of that in your gilded cage, save to your jealous robot bird boyfriend."

"Robot? Isn't that Czech?"

"Oh, right, that term's after your time." Benny wracked her brains. When did the term robot get coined? She knew that it was coined by Karel Čapek for his play _Rossum's Universal Robots_. When was that? 1920-something(1)? "I mean automaton. Anyway, I doubt you had a lot of people to talk to."

"Not really." She indicated the way she had come. "That man, back there…is he really my father?"

"I dunno. I guess that's what the Doctor was doing with Booker. Doing some DNA fingerprinting." Seeing her look, Benny said, "Genetic fingerprinting? Do you know about genetics? Hereditary characteristics?"

"I have some books on that," Elizabeth said. "I preferred the quantum physics books. So, what you're saying is, the Doctor somehow found out that that man is my father?"

"Yeah. There were a whole bunch of blood samples from you back in that tower in Monument Island," Benny said. "He took one. I think that was why. He probably suspected something. That's the problem with the Doctor, he doesn't always tell you what's going on, even if he actually has a plan."

"…And Comstock being him?"

Benny frowned. Now that she came to think about it, there was a vague resemblance between Comstock and Booker. Age him up a few decades, give him a beard, and you might have Comstock. It would explain the way he seemed to target Booker during his rant.

But Booker, for all his admission of his sins and his brutality in combat, seemed like a nice enough guy. Whereas Comstock was a self-righteous hypocrite.

"I dunno, but if it's true, then he's probably in a bad way. He's had a lot to deal with. You probably haven't seen that much, being in the tower and all, but Comstock is a Grade-A bastard. Small fry compared to some I've met, but all the same…well, I'm glad we're away from him."

"But are we really? I mean with that man on board your time machine?"

"I don't think Booker has anything to do with that. But hopefully, we've crippled Comstock's ability to open up his own Tears, or at least hindered him. We sabotaged a device in your tower."

Elizabeth still scowled. Benny recognised what was wrong. So, she said, "I know what it's like to grow up without a father…and be told he was an utter bastard." Seeing Elizabeth look to her, Benny said, "When I was a kid, we were at war with these monsters, the Daleks. As scary as Songbird was, they're scarier."

"Are they automatons? Like Songbird?"

"You'd think that to look at them. They look like a big metal pepperpot with an eye and a gun, but actually, they have a little mutant creature in them. Looks a bit like a homicidal octopus. Anyway, my father was Admiral Isaac Summerfield. When I was seven, his ship was lost in a battle against the Daleks. And what was worse was that data suggested he had turned tail and fled. He was declared a deserter. Years later, while travelling with the Doctor, I found him, alive and well in England in 1983. Turns out his ship dropped through a rift in space and time. He also had this rather nasty plan to accelerate human weapons development to make sure we were ready for the Daleks when they invade. I wasn't exactly happy with that(2). We reconciled, true, and one day, I might visit him."

"At least he didn't sell you," Elizabeth said, bitterness tingeing her tone.

"True," Benny said. "But I saw self-loathing in his eyes. Believe me, I know what that looks like. Anyway, we won't talk about that. We're in Paris. Where you wanted to go."

"I am, aren't I?" Elizabeth said quietly. "But what year is this?"

"I dunno."

"BYE-BYE, DUGGAN!" The shout was in a loud, booming voice, and both women had their eyes drawn to the shouter, who wasn't far away. Benny recognised the two people. She hadn't actually met the man, a tall man with a distinctive mop of curly hair, goggling eyes, and teeth showing in a beaming smile. He wore a rather eccentric outfit that looked somewhat bohemian, its most noteworthy feature being a very long scarf.

But the (apparently) young woman she _had_ met before. While dressed, rather incongruously, in a schoolgirl's outfit, complete with straw boater, her features were haughty and aristocratic, framed by long blonde hair, though she was smiling herself.

As the pair strode by, Benny stood up, and asked, "Excuse me?"

"Yes?" the man asked. "Do I know you?" The question was genuine, and even warm.

"Let's just say that you _will_ know me. What year is this?"

"Ah, well, it's 1979." The man frowned. "I _will_ know you?" He waggled a finger chidingly. "Rather dangerous to cross the timelines like that."

"Don't worry, I won't say anything that might be damaging. But thanks Doctor. And thanks, Romana."

The two people looked at each other, shrugged, and then made their farewells, leaving. Elizabeth looked at Benny, confused. "That wasn't the Doctor…was it?"

"His people, when mortally wounded, regenerate their bodies. It gets rid of the damage, but it also changes their appearance, and their personality. The Doctor showed me a picture once. That was his fourth body, and the one I know is his seventh. I've met Romana before(3). Or rather, after. Time travel does mess things up. She probably forgot about me."

Elizabeth seemed to digest this, before looking back at the Eiffel Tower. "1979…I'd be over 80 years old."

"If you existed in this timeline. The Doctor and I come from another timeline to that of Columbia. It doesn't exist in our reality. Dunno whether you or Booker do," Benny said. "Rosalind Lutece did, though she died before graduating university."

"A chilling thought, to have not existed in one world, and to have existed in another," Elizabeth said quietly. She then looked out around Paris. "I've seen Paris like this, or not unlike this before."

"Yeah, we saw you opening that Tear."

"…What happens to Paris in the future?" Elizabeth asked.

Benny frowned. Should she tell Elizabeth? "Well, it gets hit by an asteroid in about a century's time(4). And the Daleks invade some decades after that. And no, we can't warn them. That's one of the big no-nos of time travel. That's one of the reasons we went to Columbia in the first place, anyway. They were using your Tears to steal music and technology from other times." Benny scowled when she remembered Comstock's words. "He must've also used them to look at our histories somehow. When he confronted us, he used parts of our past against us. God, I want to throttle the bastard for that."

"Why? What did he say?"

"Well…you know how we said Comstock hates people from different races from hooking up? Well, I have a kid whose father is an alien."

"Really?"

"Really. His name is Peter. My boy. And the father is called Adrian Wall. Anyway, Comstock used that against me. He has to rank amongst the most despicable kind of human beings there are."

"And what would you say about my father?" Elizabeth asked quietly. "About Booker?"

"Him? Well, he's frankly more used to killing than I am, and he has a lot to make up for for doing what he did, assuming you're his daughter. But I think he wants to be a better man than he is."

Elizabeth didn't say anything for a time. Then, she asked, "My birth name…what was it?"

"I'd say Anna DeWitt," Benny said. "That brand on his hand, 'A.D', was his way of reminding himself of his sin."

Elizabeth nodded. "If it's all the same, I'm going to keep calling myself Elizabeth. That's the only name I've really known."

"And it's a good one," the Doctor said, striding up with Booker, Missy, and Eric in tow. "One of my best friends was an Elizabeth. Dr Elizabeth Shaw. And, of course, I named a car of mine Bessie." He strode up to Elizabeth, and knelt down in front of her. "Now, thanks to your…outburst, the TARDIS will need a little time to rest and repair. So, I presume you won't object to a few days' holiday in Paris?"

Elizabeth looked into the Doctor's eyes, before nodding. Benny noticed that she avoided looking at Booker, who looked rather downcast. Then again, remembering that you had sold your own daughter to a man who turned out to be your evil twin from a parallel universe wouldn't be in the Good Times Handbook of the Universe. And he had let this slip at the wrong moment. Told his own daughter he had sold her. No wonder she reacted badly.

"By the way, Doctor, I saw your fourth incarnation and Romana go by. I asked them what year it was."

"Really? I don't remember. Still, just as well, given the timelines and all that," the Doctor said. "So, where to first? The Louvre? Just don't say anything about the Mona Lisa…"

* * *

Between dimensions, the Luteces were watching events unfold on Columbia. It seemed that the Doctor's intervention had borne unforeseen fruit…and not all of it good.

"That's not good," Robert Lutece murmured as they finished watching a meeting between Comstock and Fink.

"Your capacity for understatement astounds me as always, brother," Rosalind remarked, though her sarcasm hid her own concern, and Robert knew it. Of the two, Rosalind was more acerbic. She had needed a sharper wit and tongue to deal with the male-dominated academia of their time. And while she was more amoral than her brother, she still had something of a conscience.

"Really? I would think that after assuming our current state, little would," Robert said, a little snidely.

"Never mind. This new development _is_ most disturbing," Rosalind said. "I suppose that, considering what has happened, Comstock getting inspiration from that source shouldn't be surprising."

"The loss of his daughter has certainly not curbed his ambitions. They have merely accelerated them," Robert said. "And it seems that he has discarded his notion of the tumours being the means for God to, and I quote, 'carry me home'."

"It seems that he has. This is terrible."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Your capacity for understatement astounds me as always, sister," he said, reusing her own words.

Rosalind merely harrumphed. "It's bad enough that Comstock intended to use Columbia to conquer and destroy. But these…he is emulating one of the greatest evils of the universe. A sickness that needs curing."

"Well," Robert mused. "There's only one thing for it. What does one do for sickness?"

"You call a Doctor."

 **CHAPTER 9 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **Benny and Elizabeth swap stories, and the Luteces discover something very disturbing indeed.**

 **Do you like the nice little tie-in with the ending of** ** _City of Death_** **? I couldn't resist it.**

 **My first review has come in from** **Xzeihoranth** **. I have actually read at least one of your own crossovers between** ** _Doctor Who_** **and** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **. I don't know what you mean by the TARDIS taking things well. If it's because of travel between timelines, keep in mind that travel between parallel universes was relatively easy in the classic series. If you're talking about Elizabeth, she's not as big a paradox as Clara or Charley Pollard, two companions which the TARDIS didn't like for being paradoxes.**

 **1.** ** _Rossum's Universal Robots_** **, was indeed written in 1920. Karel Čapek, however, credited his brother with the invention of the actual word. 'Automaton' is an older equivalent term.**

 **2\. The events around Benny reuniting with her father occur in the New Adventures novel** ** _Return of the Living Dad_** **.**

 **3\. The events around Ace leaving the TARDIS, as mentioned before, happen in** ** _Love and War_** **.**

 **4\. The New Adventures novel** ** _Transit_** **states this, and the guilty party are the Ice Warriors.**


	11. Chapter 10: A Holiday Interrupted

**CHAPTER 10:**

 **A HOLIDAY INTERRUPTED**

It was, Elizabeth reflected, a good experience. While it didn't quite live up to her expectations, they had been somewhat unreasonable. But just to be here, in Paris, was an experience in of itself, especially as she had spent almost her entire life in the same few rooms.

First, the Louvre, with the Doctor mentioning the potted history of the gallery and the palace that housed it. He also noted the broken windows being repaired in the gallery with the Mona Lisa. He would later divulge (once they were outside the Louvre, of course) to the others that Duggan broke them while trying to escape the Louvre, having failed to stop the theft of the Mona Lisa. He also pointed out a few paintings and sculptures, and related what sounded like personal anecdotes about the artists behind them.

Then, there was the Moulin Rouge. The Doctor waxed lyrical about knowing Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois, or as she was better known as, the cabaret singer Mistinguett. They went to a dozen attractions and sites of historical importance, with the Doctor (and sometimes Benny) offering anecdotes, many of them quite interesting. The Doctor mentioned, for example, an incident involving Toulouse-Lautrec and a hideous demon who fed on life-force. Or the time he was challenged to a swordfight by a Musketeer(1).

Elizabeth found herself warming to the Doctor. Despite his sombre and sad eyes, and an admission of dark deeds, he nonetheless had a jovial, impish air that Elizabeth liked. Quick-witted, his Scottish accent was also very much an exotic one, as Elizabeth had only heard mostly American voices and some English ones, through phonograph records.

They were now at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The Doctor was regaling them with how Count Victor Lustig(2), while trying to 'sell' the Tower as part of a confidence trick, accidentally sold it to a pair of alien tourists, who were far from amused.

They decided that they wanted to have a picnic on the _Champ de Mars_ , the long park near the Eiffel Tower. So they all descended, and the Doctor decided to take Elizabeth back to the TARDIS in order to get picnic supplies.

"Is the TARDIS all right, Doctor?" Elizabeth asked as they strode through the doors.

"You gave her a nasty shock, Elizabeth, but she has recovered from far worse. And I understand why. You learned that your own father sold you, to an alternate version of himself. An alternate version who is very much a fanatic who wanted to use you to drown the world in fire," the Doctor said. He led her through corridors of the TARDIS. She was fascinated by the massive size of the time machine.

"I'm sorry, though. I just…I've also been uprooted from the only home I've ever known."

The Doctor looked back at her, and smiled. "Just like Susan. I had to flee Gallifrey, you know. I took Susan with me, and we fled with this TARDIS. Unfortunately, we had also taken someone else along for the ride, one Quadrigger Stoyn. I can understand why he was angry, but he quickly devolved into something no Time Lord should be. Both Susan and Stoyn were uprooted from everything they knew. Susan coped wonderfully. Stoyn didn't. In fact, he tried to help wipe out all life on Earth(3)."

Elizabeth nodded. Eventually, she asked, "Can I trust Booker?"

The Doctor sighed, contemplating this. Eventually, he said, "Trust is an elusive thing, Elizabeth. The truth is, can you trust me? I have more blood on my hands than even Booker ever had. I think once Booker gets over the realisation of who Comstock is, and who you are, I think you will have the best guardian anyone can ask for. He wants to redeem himself for his sins. As I told him, redemption cannot be earned with a single act, but is ongoing. And I think he understands that. That is the difference between him and Comstock. You can't gain redemption and morality by a simple dip in the water: you have to actively practise it."

Elizabeth was silent for a time as they made it to the room where the Doctor kept what seemed like hundreds of picnic baskets, stacked to the ceiling. They were kept fresh, the Doctor explained, by a stasis field. She saw something out of place in the room, though. A massive disc-like machine, festooned with dials, and with a small screen in the centre. "What is that?" she asked.

"A Time-Space Visualiser," the Doctor said. "I was given it as a reward for helping the Xerons for overthrowing the Moroks. It came in very useful, as it was on that that we found out that an execution squad of Daleks had been sent after us(4)."

As they turned to get a picnic basket, they heard a man's voice say, "It's a useful device, though it can only show events in the relative past."

"But it can also see events across dimensions," a woman said. "The ultimate in voyeurism."

Elizabeth whirled to find a pair of redheads in tan suits, a man and a woman, apparently twins. The Doctor, though startled, seemed to recognise them. "That is rather rich, coming from you two, considering you see a lot, if not everything."

"Doctor, who are these people?"

"Ah yes, Elizabeth, allow me to introduce Robert and Rosalind Lutece. If you ask nicely, they might autograph their books for you."

Elizabeth blinked, before she said, "I thought you died."

"So did we. It was rather an unpleasant experience to die, and then find one's self become a quantum spectre," Rosalind Lutece said with a shrug. She then approached Elizabeth, and said, "I have to offer my apologies, Elizabeth. We were the ones who helped Comstock take you from your father, as well as engaging in many of the experiments upon you. We were also the ones to send your father to fetch you. It was not only his redemption on the line."

Elizabeth didn't know what to say. She couldn't trust her to say anything. But then, the Doctor interjected. "Can I assume that you are here for a reason?"

"Yes. But it can wait until the picnic is over. Even quantum ghosts enjoy a good sandwich," Rosalind remarked.

* * *

The picnic was enjoyed in relative silence. Well, enjoyed may have been too strong a term, what with the Lutece Twins present. Save for Missy and Eric, everyone knew what they meant. Even Elizabeth was silent, as she knew that, if they had a link to her past, then them coming here meant that Columbia was reaching out for them once more.

As they departed for the TARDIS once more, Rosalind remarked, "You know, I haven't been to Paris since that conference. Well, save for fleeting visits in my current state."

"What are you two here for?" Booker asked. "I've got Elizabeth back. I've got…" Elizabeth saw the emotion welling up in his face, and for the first time, actually felt sorry for her father. They had just gone through some pretty trying circumstances over the past little while.

"All in good time," Robert said. "We will be showing you why."

"Unfortunately, Doctor, though your visit had many good consequences, it set off even worse ones," Rosalind said.

"Comstock had visions of times yet to come, and of far-off worlds," Robert said.

"And this was partly due to the wake of your time machine affecting our apparatus," Rosalind said. "He has seen things he should never have seen." She then turned to the Doctor, halting him. "And he has been inspired."

"Inspired?" the Doctor murmured, paling. "By what?"

Rosalind didn't reply, though Elizabeth noted that the scientist was playing around pensively with a pepperpot from the picnic basket. And that the Doctor and Benny, upon noticing, were paling. "You can't mean…" Benny said.

"Their ideologies, at the core, are very similar," Rosalind said pensively, quietly interrupting the archaeologist. "Conquest, and the destruction and/or enslavement of any that doesn't fit their creed. Fuelled by fanaticism and the disregard of the rights of anyone who does not fit their worldview."

They were led back to the room with the picnic baskets…and the Time-Space Visualiser. Immediately, Robert and Rosalind went to work, adjusting dials and flicking switches. A high-pitched whistle escaped the apparatus, and static flickered on the screen, before an image finally coalesced on it. The sextet gathered around it as Rosalind said, "Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin…"

* * *

The sight that greeted them was a horrific one. Comstock. It had been some time since they had been to Columbia, for he seemed to be wasting away from his sickness. He was confined to a wheelchair, but one that enclosed the lower half of his body. Tubes and cables ran out of his still-immaculate suit and into the depths of the mechanical wheelchair. His body was held in place by a brace, while his emaciated face was festooned with wires.

"Doctor," Benny hissed. "You know who he looks like(5)?"

"I do," the Doctor murmured in disgust.

This impression was only heightened when Comstock spoke. He was trundling alongside Fink, who was leading him into the depths of a building. His voice now had a distinctive, metallic rasp about it. " _Fink, is the surgery ready?_ "

" _Indeed it is, Comstock. Slate wasn't at all happy when he learned what fate would befall him. He said, and I quote, 'I would rather die than become one of Comstock's tin soldiers!'_ ," Fink said with a vicious smile.

" _Fool. He should be honoured that I am giving him and his apostate followers a second chance, a chance to be part of the vanguard of my army that will cleanse the Sodom below in purifying fire._ "

"Slate…" Missy murmured. She looked at Eric. "Do you think he means Cornelius Slate?"

"Cornelius Slate is on Columbia?!" Booker demanded.

"Yes. He was part of Comstock's forces, but he became frustrated with his being marginalised, while Comstock took the glory," Missy explained. "He says that Comstock didn't fight at Wounded Knee, and certainly took away from Slate's glory against the Boxer Rebellion."

"I knew Slate at Wounded Knee," Booker said. "Half-crazy, half-hero. If Comstock is me, then he's probably exaggerated what he did at Wounded Knee. No wonder Slate would be pissed."

"Sshh," Benny said. "Is that him?"

Booker looked at the screen, depicting a table to which a grizzled old man with an eyepatch and a moustache and beard was strapped to it, strange growths emerging from his face. After a moment's perusal, Booker nodded. "That's Slate all right. But what happened to him?"

"Looks like a Vigor overdose," Eric muttered. "I've seen it happen. In rare cases, those growths come out permanently when you drink too much of a Vigor. Looks like he drank too much Shock Jockey. What are they going to do to him?"

"Something very unpleasant," the Doctor muttered.

Slate roused himself when he saw, in an observation gallery above him, Comstock and Fink. " _COMSTOCK! You snake-tongued bastard! Release me this instant! Fight me like a man!_ "

" _A man is frail and weak, their flesh prone to wounds and decay, their soul prone to corruption and temptation_ ," Comstock replied. " _Your treachery only proves that. Rejoice, my friend, for you are to be the first of my glorious army._ "

" _I WILL NOT BE ONE OF YOUR TIN SOLDIERS, COMSTOCK!_ "

As the old soldier fought against his bonds, Comstock said, " _Actually, I believe it is a very different metal rather than tin._ " As a surgeon injected Slate with anaesthetic, Comstock said, " _You should rejoice, my friend. You will fight many more battles to come._ "

What followed was a sickening medical procedure that seemed more like crude butchery than surgery, though the Doctor, even as he was disgusted, admired the skill of the surgeons. Slate's head was severed, attached to life-support apparatus, and had cables inserted into the skull at precise points. And then, the head and its life-support machinery was brought over to a shape that was all too familiar to the Doctor and Benny. To the others, it wasn't familiar at all.

It was shaped, roughly, like a pepperpot. After Slate's head was connected to the apparatus within, the shell was closed up. It had a strange array of hemispherical bumps along the lower part of the body. Above this section, in place of arms, was a clawed mechanical arm, and a short, stubby rod with wires around it that brought the watchers to mind of an egg-whisk. A grill took the place of a neck, while mounted on that was a dome with two lights and what could have been an eye on a stalk.

"Of all the things to copy…" the Doctor said in horror.

"What is that thing?" Elizabeth asked. "Why has it got you so scared?"

"Because Elizabeth," Benny said quietly, "Comstock has copied one of the most evil beings in the universe. He's creating his own version of the Daleks."

"That's a Dalek?" Booker asked, remembering the Doctor mentioning them to him.

"Comstock's own version."

On the screen, Comstock was told that the operation was a success, and that Slate had been successfully indoctrinated. Slate, or rather, the Dalek that was Slate, was activated. " _Whom do you serve?_ " Comstock asked.

After a moment, the Dalek said, " _Com-stock_."

Elizabeth, Booker, Missy and Eric paled. That voice was spoken in a metallic, grating monotone that nonetheless had a shrill edge to it. The two lights on its head flashed in time with the voice.

"And what is your purpose?"

" _All enemies of Columbia are to be destroyed! Ex-ter-min-ate them! EX-TER-MIN-ATE EX-TER-MIN-ATE!_ _ **EX-TER-MIN-ATE!**_ "

 **CUE** ** _DOCTOR WHO_** **TITLE MUSIC**

 **CREDITS:**

THE DOCTOR

Sylvester McCoy

BERNICE SUMMERFIELD

Lisa Bowerman

BOOKER DEWITT

Troy Baker

ROBERT LUTECE

Eric Vaquez

ROSALIND LUTECE

Jennifer Hale

JEREMIAH FINK

Bill Lobley

ELIZABETH

Courtnee Draper

MISSY

Karen Eliot(6)

ERIC

David Agnew(6)

ZACHARY HALE COMSTOCK

Kiff VandenHeuvel

CORNELIUS SLATE

Keith Szarabajka

DALEK VOICES

Nicholas Briggs

THE DOCTOR

Tom Baker

ROMANA

Lalla Ward

 **CHAPTER 10 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **Sorry it took a long time for this chapter to come out. Motivation was lacking, etc. And it will probably be some time before a new chapter comes out. Still, enjoyed this twist?**

 **1\. The events around Toulouse-Lautrec happened in** ** _Demon Quest: The Demon of Paris_** **(not a Big Finish audio, but a BBC-produced dramatic reading), while the Doctor being challenged by a Musketeer happened in** ** _The Church and the Crown_** **, a Big Finish audio.**

 **2\. Lustig, infamously, sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap for a scam in the early 20** **th** **century.**

 **3\. Stoyn appeared in a trilogy of stories, dramatic readings that were part of Big Finish's Companion Chronicles:** ** _The Beginning, The Dying Light_** **, and** ** _Luna Romana_** **. The Doctor is specifically referring to the events of** ** _The Beginning_** **, though Stoyn did try to wipe out life on Earth during the events of** ** _Luna Romana_** **.**

 **4\. The Time-Space Visualiser was obtained during the events of** ** _The Space Museum_** **, and its abilities were shown in** ** _The Chase_** **.**

 **5\. Comstock basically looks like a dieselpunk Davros. Benny met Davros during the events of the Big Finish audio** ** _The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield: The Lights of Skaro_** **.**

 **6\. I couldn't find who voiced these two characters in** ** _BioShock Infinite_** **, so I used established pseudonyms instead. 'Karen Eliot' is a pseudonym used in music, while 'David Agnew' is a pseudonym used in TV in the 70s (to denote works done by production personnel, given the rules at the time), including two** ** _Doctor Who_** **stories:** ** _The Invasion of Time_** **(actually written by Anthony Read and Graham Williams) and** ** _City of Death_** **(written by Douglas Adams and Graham Williams, based on a story by David Fisher).**


	12. Chapter 11: Return to Columbia

**EPISODE 3:**

 **PLAGIARISM OF THE DALEKS**

 **CHAPTER 11:**

 **RETURN TO COLUMBIA**

"What is it about these…Daleks that scare you two so much?" Eric asked. The sextet of time travellers were in the control room of the TARDIS as the Doctor began setting coordinates. Coordinates given to him by the Luteces, who had vanished, but had promised to help out. The Doctor had vanished to a workshop for about half an hour, before coming back with what seemed like a megaphone in tow.

For a moment, the Doctor didn't answer him. But then, just as someone seemed to want to break the silence, the Doctor did so. "Imagine a war, spanning an entire world, so far away from Earth that light would take millions of years to reach it. It has gone on for a thousand years, and nobody truly knows why it started. Two sides, where there are no heroes, only brutal xenophobes facing off against each other, their people poisoned by long-held beliefs, and any talk of peace is ground under heel. The Kaleds, and the Thals. So great is their xenophobia, that anyone with a hint of mutation from the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are killed, or sent out into the scarred wastelands of their world to die."

"That's obscene," Booker said.

"That sounds like what the Spartans would practise, only taken to extremes," Elizabeth said.

"Indeed. One Kaled man, one very brilliant scientist, actually had a moment of inspiration, that the mutations were inevitable. Instead of trying to prevent them, he worked on creating a vehicle and life-support apparatus for the resulting mutants he created through accelerated evolution. But even with such good intentions, that scientist perverted them, hoping to perpetuate his own twisted ideology in these creatures. He removed most of their emotions, heightened their aggression and xenophobia. And he gave these vehicles powerful directed-energy weapons. That man was called Davros. And his creations, who soon turned on him, were the Daleks. A single Dalek is an army unto itself. It has the armour of a tank, thick enough that only high explosives or the right kind of energy weapon can penetrate. Its blaster can demolish a house, and has enough power to wipe out the population of a planet, one by one. It has a rabid hatred of anything unlike itself. Daleks either kill in great numbers, or enslave those they consider 'lesser species'. Conquest and extermination is their creed."

"Xenophobic fanatics, you called them, Doc," Booker said. "Doesn't sound too different from Columbia and Comstock's people."

"No. Columbia is different, with it being the result of American exceptionalism taken to its most absurd extremes," the Doctor said. "But the result is chillingly similar. No wonder Comstock became enamoured with the design. That is why we are going back. The Luteces also gave me some pointers on how to deal with our avian friend. I had the right idea, using a lullaby. Remember the statue playing the music?"

Elizabeth nodded, grasping what he meant. "Songbird responds to the music, right? Is it specific notes?"

"Yes. It seems that whoever designed it had a perverse sense of humour. The notes played were 'C', 'A', 'G' and 'E'. In other words, 'CAGE'. And the notes are not dissimilar to the opening of _The Holly and the Ivy_ , a Christian hymn, which would appeal to Comstock. Those notes seem to be, well, in computer terms, root access. In other words, it's a master password, and once Songbird recognises whoever played those notes, whether they be automaton or human, he has no choice but to obey them. If it is an automaton, he defaults to his pre-programmed instructions. But if a human is using the master password, then he will obey their verbal commands afterwards."

"Do we have a musical instrument we can use?" Elizabeth asked.

"Actually, I'm working on something better. We'll take my old recorder as a back-up, but this is what I'm doing." He tapped the megaphone, which seemed heavily modified. "It's a gimmick megaphone from the mid-twenty first century. It basically either makes your amplified voice sing to a pre-programmed or custom song, or changes it to that of an artificial singer known as a Vocaloid."

"Does it come with a Hatsune Miku voice?" Benny asked.

"Of course. Music soothes the savage beast. I just hope it works." He looked at them all. "Benny and I are used to this, but if you want me to leave you here in Paris, I won't stop you. You can even stay in the TARDIS when we get to Columbia. Whether you want to help me stop Comstock is up to you. Especially you, Elizabeth, as Comstock will possibly renew his efforts to recapture you, once he learns you're back."

"I'm sick of being in a cage," Elizabeth said. "Even gilded ones, or those made of fear. And I won't let the man who fancies himself my father destroy everyone who doesn't share his way of thinking."

"And I'm done running from my past, and my present," Booker said, folding his arms. "Besides, I've always had a knack for self-destruction. With an evil bastard version of me, I can make it literal." He emitted a sardonic chuckle.

"We're with the Vox Populi," Missy said. "We've been committed to the fight against Comstock for some time."

"Which is good," the Doctor said, "as the Luteces said that we will be heading to a stockade near the Bull Yard, the charmingly-named police station of Shantytown. The slums of Columbia," he added, for the benefit of Booker, Benny, and Elizabeth. "They told me that unless a _deus ex machina_ comes out of nowhere, Daisy Fitzroy is about to be executed."

"Deus ex what?" Booker asked.

"A god from out of the machine," Benny said. "Used in old Greek plays to solve a completely fouled-up plot. Basically, the gods swoop in and sort everything out."

"It means a heavily contrived story element that is needed to resolve the plot," Elizabeth elucidated.

"And we're that contrived element," the Doctor said. "So, are you all ready?"

The five humans present all nodded. So with a decisive movement, the Doctor set the TARDIS into motion, the distinctive elephantine roar echoing through the ship…

* * *

Daisy Fitzroy was prepared to die for her cause, as was just about everyone else in the Vox Populi. Of course, there was a difference between being prepared to die for the cause, and having to die in such an ignominious way. Here she was, dressed in the same clothes she had worn as a maid in the Comstock household.

It had been about a month since that ruckus at the anniversary fair, and Slate getting himself captured in the Hall of Heroes. A month spent on hit and run attacks, culminating in her capture a few days ago. The interrogation which was little more than torture for its own sake.

She remembered the Founders' raid. The things shaped like pepperpots, squawking 'EXTERMINATE!' in grating mechanical voices. More than the Handymen or Firemen or the other forces of Comstock, those things actually scared her. They were inhuman and ruthless, and she was only spared because they had been ordered to capture her. The way they killed was also frightening: she had seen Vigors at work, and the nearest she could come to thinking about them was that it was like Shock Jockey. But it was like a beam of light was shot from their guns (which looked like a weird egg-whisk to Daisy), and when they hit someone, they seemed to briefly flare from positive to negative, like a photograph. You could sometimes see their skeletons briefly, moving and flailing in their death throes.

She had been the victim of one of those guns: it seemed that they could be made to paralyse someone rather than kill. She had been forced to watch, her legs numb and lifeless, as they brutally murdered her soldiers. That had been worse than the physical pain from the blast, as well as what came after. Seeing her soldiers die in agony, screaming, and falling to the ground as smoking corpses.

The Vox Populi were scattered. She didn't know how many of them were left. Comstock himself came to gloat, in his shiny new wheelchair. He didn't look very well, but the fires of his zeal still burned strong in his eyes.

It was almost worth the bruises and cracked ribs, spitting in his face. Not exactly an intelligent rejoinder, but Daisy Fitzroy knew that Comstock only understood emotive appeals, not intellectual ones. And nothing said 'Go fuck yourself' like a glob of spittle in the face.

She thought about that ruckus at the fair, when Missy and Eric were scheduled to be effectively stoned to death. She couldn't risk rescuing them. They were good people, but she would have wasted her men trying to save them. So when word reached her ears of a weird ruckus started by a trio of strangers, one of whom supposedly killed them in a vanishing blue cabinet, she didn't know what to think. Supposedly, these three included the False Shepherd Comstock was always raving about. It was probably no coincidence that shortly thereafter, Monument Island was destroyed, apparently by Songbird throwing a tantrum. And there were continual warnings about the False Shepherd and his compatriots. Not that that meant much.

As that ratfink bastard Fink read out her crimes, many of them real, too many of them fabricated (though the one about murdering Lady Annabelle Comstock was bullshit, of course), Daisy was resigned to death. They were going to make it hurt, and they were going to make it final. The ironic thing was, she was probably going to become a martyr to her cause, and the Vox Populi would burn with ever more fervour.

The thought, oddly, gave her little comfort. Not because she wouldn't be around to see it or appreciate it, but because sometimes, fervour went a little too far. The Vox could go down the same path as the Founders. Normally, anything that drowned the Founders in a tide of blood would go down well with her. But where did it stop? Where did freedom end, and anarchy, the type that was unbridled chaos, began?

Her musings were interrupted when she heard, faintly, in the distance, a distinctive noise. It sounded like elephants mating, like ancient machinery being pushed to its limit, like the very fabric of space and time was being torn a new orifice. And to her astonishment, just under a nearby archway, a blue box faded into existence, the unearthly roar accompanied by a pulsing light on top. Was that the same box that had taken Eric and Missy?

The door opened, and a sextet of people walked through. Her eyes widened when she recognised Missy and Eric, alive, well, and apparently sane. One of the men, a hard-faced man who just screamed ex-cop or ex-army, had a shotgun ready. The other man, a shorted one, wielded a…bullhorn? The two women were both dark-haired.

"Excuse me!" the older man in the group called out through the bullhorn, with it somehow imparting a musical quality to his voice. "I wish to speak now, or forever hold my peace!"

"The False Shepherd! His anarchist friends the Doctor and Summerfield! And the 'happy couple'," Fink sneered. "Daleks! Cover them! Be careful not to hit the girl, she's the Lamb of Columbia."

The two pepperpot automaton things swung around to aim their weapons at the sextet. "There is no need for this!" the man with the bullhorn yelled, albeit seeming to sing through the bullhorn. "Release her, and this won't get any worse!"

"You have one weapon, Doctor!" Fink jeered. "One weapon! And it's in the hand of the False Shepherd."

"False Shepherd? Didn't Comstock tell you everything about me, pal?" The so-called False Shepherd scoffed. "He hates me because it's like looking into a mirror, and frankly, the feeling's mutual!"

Fink frowned. "What was that?"

"This is your last chance!" the Doctor yelled, his voice once more sounding like it was singing. "Release Fitzroy, or I will call down Songbird from the skies!"

"You really are a fool, Doctor, to bluff with so poor a hand," Fink sneered. But then, they heard the distinctive trilling cry of Songbird in the distance.

"Is that right? Well…SONGBIRD! DESTROY THE DALEKS! FREE DAISY FITZROY!"

Flying in through a gap in the buildings, barely making it through, Comstock's infamous automaton enforcer swept in. A high-pitched voice seemed to emanate from the automaton. "DESTROY THE DALEKS!" it screeched.

A glancing blow from one massive clawed hand sent a Dalek spinning. It fired, squawking, the blast bringing down rubble over the blue box, blocking the entrance. Another Dalek was gripped, and hurled into a building, while the first Dalek was torn apart by Songbird. The automaton then flew at a couple of more Daleks, and began to attack them, shrieking in pain as they tried to kill him.

The two women, along with Eric and Missy, rushed onto the stocks. Fink, realising what had happened, ran for his life, and the Founders, upon seeing their automaton turning against them, scattered. The younger woman, the one who could very well be the Lamb, undid the lock on the stocks with a hairpin lock. "Daisy Fitzroy, I'm Elizabeth Comstock, aka the Lamb of Columbia. We're here to rescue you."

Fitzroy straightened up, working out the cricks in her neck and back, before asking wryly, "What took you so long?"

"The TARDIS! There's rubble blocking it!" the older white woman said.

"EXTERMINATE!" Daleks began swarming into the square where her stocks had been erected.

"Dammit, we won't have time to clear that rubble!" the False Shepherd snarled.

"I think we'd better retreat for the time being. We might need Songbird in future, and that many Daleks could kill him," the Doctor said. He looked to Fitzroy. "Do you have any boltholes that haven't been compromised?"

Fitzroy nodded. While to tell the truth, she couldn't trust this man instantly, he had just used Songbird to save her life. She doubted Comstock would have had the wit to try something so convoluted. "This way, with me."

They nodded, and the Doctor yelled through his bullhorn, "Return to your perch, Songbird!"

The automaton screeched, shooting into the air like a rocket, and soon, Daisy was running like hell, her new companions hot on her heels. Maybe they could be useful for more than hauling her ass out of the fire…

 **CHAPTER 11 ANNOTATIONS:**

 **Sorry for the wait. It still will be a long time before the next one as well. But I hope you like this latest chapter.**

 **No numbered annotations. Sorry.**


End file.
